Award Data

In recent decades, NASA?s interest in spacecraft rendezvous and proximity operations has grown. Additional instrumentation is needed to improve manned docking operations? safety, as well as to enable telerobotic operation of spacecraft or completely autonomous rendezvous and docking. To address this need, we propose a suite of active sensors that will provide range and bearing information to a doc ...

Distribution of International Space Station (ISS) downlink video to Remote Principle Investigators (RPIs) requires a connection to Abilene, an Internet2 high-performance research network, or a network that peers with Abilene. Additionally, multicast network capability and four megabits per second bandwidth capacity per video channel is required end-to-end in order to receive the downlink video. ...

The overall objective is to develop a ?mixed-methodology?, drag and drop, component library (fluidic-lego)-based, system design and optimization tool for complex lab-on-a-chip systems. Experiments-based design is expensive and time-consuming. Full multiphysics simulations, while successful in designing components, are computationally infeasible for system design. The proposed tool will accelera ...

NEW APPROACHES TO AUTOMATIC CONTROL ARE NEEDED IF VARIABLE POLARITY PLASMA ARC (VPPA) WELDING IS TO REALIZE ITS FULL POTENTIAL AS A RELIABLE, REPEATABLE, COST EFFECTIVE PROCESS.PRESENT VPPA CONTROL SYSTEMS ARE FIRST GENERATION, ELEMENTARY COMPUTER-BASED SYSTEMS THAT DEPEND ON PROGRAMS WHICH ARE EXPERIMENTALLY DERIVED, AND DO NOT COMPENSATE FOR ANOMOLIES INJECTED BY TOOLING, PART, AND OTHER INDEPEN ...

We propose to continue development of power semiconductor devices (diodes and transistors) for power-management and actuator-control circuits operating at cryogenic temperatures. Cryogenic power electronics can provide important benefits both for space and commercial applications: higher efficiency, reduced size, weight and complexity, and improved system reliability. Of primary importance to spac ...

This Phase II SBIR proposal is for the development of a miniaturized real-time visible/UV spectrometer prototype based on micro-opto-electro-mechanical systems (MOEMS) technology. Use of MOEMS technology enables orders of magnitude reductions in size, we

THE OVERALL CYCLE EFFICIENCY (HENCE, INPUT POWER REQUIREMENTS) OF REVERSE-BRAYTON CRYOCOOLERS FOR SPACE APPLICATIONS IS HIGHLY SENSITIVE TO THE THERMAL EFFECTIVENESS OF THE HEAT EXCHANGERS. APPLICATIONS FOR THESE CRYOCOOLERS IN SPACE DICTATE THAT THESE HEAT EXCHANGERS BE AS SMALL AND LIGHT AS POSSIBLE. TO DATE, ONLYHEAT EXCHANGERS EMPLOYING ORGANIC MATERIALS HAVE BEEN ABLE TO ACHIEVE THE HIGH THER ...

The innovative product from this project is an instrument to measure void fraction in packed-bed reactors using an impedance-based approach. As NASA pursues long-duration crewed missions, it will be necessary to adapt packed-bed chemical processing methods to reduced gravity to minimize the mass and volume of consumables hauled from earth. To develop design tools, accurate measurement of void frac ...

Exposure to microgravity results in a number of physiological changes including loss of bone and increased risk of kidney stone formation. Long duration spaceflight requires a near real-time of monitoring bone loss during flight to alert astronauts to the potentially debilitating problems and direct the use of countermeasures. Present technology requires post-flight measurement of urinary calciu ...

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