Award Data

Space transportation and other vehicles entering the earth?s atmosphere at hypersonic speeds undergo aerodynamic heating which necessitates thermal protection systems (TPS) on exterior surfaces. Future reusable launch vehicles (RLVs) will require TPS durable over several missions with rapid turnaround between each flight. Advanced metallic TPS are under development that utilize a honeycomb structu ...

A miniature, specialized Ion Mobility Spectrometer (IMS) will be designed, built, and evaluated that is responsive to the requirements of NASA exobiology flight experiments. The helium-based Ion Mobility Spectrometer previously developed for NASA by the key personnel making this proposal provides the universal response and ppb sensitivity required. However, the minimal resources available onboard ...

The NASA vision for the spaceport of the future entails the transition over time from very high-cost, research oriented space launches with a relatively low frequency of launches to an environment where spaceports are commercialized for the space transportation industry and are required to support multiple launches per day in a safe, cost-effective manner. The spaceport of the future may resemble, ...

BasinTools is designed to facilitate the use of remotely sensed data by users who are not remote sensing specialist. Information from remotely sensed data would be used by a wide variety of engineers, planners, and scientist except they lack the expertise, sophisticated software, or high-end hardware to make use of the data. Federal, State, and Local Governments all have need of information derive ...

During Phase I of the project, Sharma & Associates, Inc. developed a concept for a high speed freight truck intended for 70-ton, regular freight and bi-modal operation at speeds up to 150 mph. The truck uses a rigid frame and an independent, compliant, primary suspension for its basic architecture. Constant contact side-bearings and yaw dampers were also added to improve dynamic performance. Ve ...

In the Phase I effort, Tai-Yang Research Corporation (TYRC) proposes to design and perform analyses on state-of-the-art High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) coils for the Variable Specific Impulse Magneto-Plasma Rocket (VASIMR) experiment being conducted at the Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory (ASPL) at the NASA Johnson Space Center. Using the design results obtained in the Phase I effort, T ...

In today's propulsion testing environment, the number of simultaneously captured video streams, the number and variety of video derived data products, and quality expectations are increasing, while available manpower and the desired turnaround time between tests is decreasing. This project will take advantage of recently developed super computer clustering technologies to develop new scalable data ...

This project will use an ultrasonic beam traveling logitudinally along the rail rather than the complex normal and angle-beams transducer assemblies in current systems. Detectio of transverse defects becomes a simple pulse-echo application and resolves many inherent speed, inspectin reliability and robustness problems in current rail inspection systems. The simplified procedure will increase the r ...

This SBIR Phase II effort proposes the development and integration of a Planar Lightwave Circuit (PLC) into an all fiber-based seed laser system used in high spectral resolution aerosol and cloud lidar applications. The PLC integrates a frequency doubling element, a waveguide splitter, and phase modulator into a monolithic, waveguide-based device. This technology is important for lidar systems r ...

AdvR, Inc. proposes the development of a highly efficient, fiber pigtailed, waveguide-based UV frequency converter module. This UV module will be an important element in future NASA sponsored Doppler lidar and High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) aerosol missions. The key innovation is the use of dual-element periodically poled waveguides embedded in a nonlinear optical substrate. This innovat ...