Award Data

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 ...

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Chemical, biological, or toxin attacks in military and civilian settings are a serious and growing concern. Standard first aid for exposure to some chemical warfare agents and toxins includes the immediate administration of relevant antidotes using an autoinjector. When an attack occurs, pre-filled autoinjectors must be immediately available and thus highly portable, and they must be suitable fo ...

Interfaces on existing military chemical/biological protection garments are not designed to fully eliminate macroscopic and microscopic air gaps at folds, fabric surfaces, or hook-and-loop closures, and thus do not provide a hermetic barrier against exposure. Creare proposes to develop a hermetic garment closure system that seals macroscopic and microscopic gaps at interfaces and closures and pro ...

NASA missions for planetary exploration require high power, long-life Hall thrusters. However, thruster power and lifetime are limited by the erosion of plasma channel walls. Current plasma channel insulators, BN or Borosil, have the required low secondary electron emission (SEE) but are susceptible to xenon plasma erosion. AlN has exceptionally high plasma erosion resistance but suffers from hig ...

Future NASA space missions require advanced systems to convert thermal energy into electric power. These systems must be reliable, efficient, and lightweight. In response, we propose to develop a turbo-Brayton power converter with high efficiency and specific power. The converter will use gas bearings to provide reliable, maintenance-free, long-life operation. It will also consist of discrete ...

Modern aircraft gas turbine engines utilize highly loaded airfoils in both the compressor and turbine to maximize performance while minimizing weight, cost, and complexity. However, high airfoil loading increases the likelihood of flow separation at lower mass flow rates. Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) plasma actuators have been shown to be a very promising technique for compressor stall con ...

Refueling spacecraft in space offers tremendous benefits for increased spacecraft payload capacity and reduced launch cost. However, there are several key challenges with space refueling associated with the storage and handling of liquid cryogens in space. To meet these challenges, we propose to develop a reliable, compact, efficient cryogenic mixing pump with no moving parts. The mixing pump w ...

NASA's future science missions to investigate the structure and evolution of the universe require efficient, very low temperature coolers for low noise detector systems. We propose to develop a highly efficient, lightweight Active Magnetic Regenerative Refrigeration (AMRR) system that can continuously provide remote/distributed cooling at temperatures of about 2 K with a heat sink at about 15 K. ...

The Trusselator technology will enable on-orbit fabrication of support structures for high-power solar arrays and large antennas, achieving order-of-magnitude improvements in packing efficiency and launch mass while reducing life-cycle cost. The Phase I Trusselator effort successfully demonstrated fabrication of continuous lengths of high-performance carbon fiber truss using a novel additive manu ...