Award Data

As the power density of advanced engines increases, the need for new materials that are capable of higher operating temperatures, such as ceramic matrix composites (CMCs), is critical for turbine hot-section static and rotating components. Such advanced materials have demonstrated the promise to significantly increase the engine temperature capability relative to conventional super alloy metallic ...

Recurring slope linae (RSL), such as those in Newton Crater on Mars, methane plumes in hazardous Martian terrain, and water ice discovered during the LCROSS experiment in the Moon?s permanently shadowed Cabeus Crater drive the need for a new generation of robotic explorers that access, probe, extract, and return resources from extreme terrains. These robots must possess sufficient system-level aut ...

The program is focused on developing high temperature energy harvesting devices that can convert waste energy (primarily vibratory) such as the mechanical disturbance from thrusters as to include waste exhaust created during operational conditions. The program focus is on developing very high performance devices that are extremely robust and that can continuously operate at up to 500 C. The purpos ...

Turboelectric aircraft with gas turbines driving electric generators connected to electric propulsion motors have the potential to transform the aircraft design space by decoupling power generation from propulsion. Resulting aircraft designs such as blended-wing bodies with distributed propulsion can provide the large reductions in emissions, fuel burn, and noise required to make air transportati ...

We propose a novel technology to leverage rapidly evolving cloud based infrastructure to improve time constrained situational awareness for real-time decision making. Our "CloudTurbine" innovation eliminates the distinction between files and streams. Streaming and static data have long been considered separately. Whereas streaming data protocols continue to fragment, a great unification of appr ...

In Phase I of this NASA SBIR project, Daniel H. Wagner Associates, Inc., designed and demonstrated the feasibility of a system for integrating environmental data into flight planning and execution for Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS). The Weather Aware Route Planning (WARP) system will provide weather-based Indicators and Warnings (I&W) and navigational recommendat ...

We propose to develop antimony-based focal plane arrays (FPAs) for NASA's imaging and spectroscopy applications in the spectral band from visible to shortwave-infrared (SWIR), viz. wavelengths from 0.5 - 2.5 microns. We will leverage recent breakthroughs in the performance of midwave and longwave infrared FPAs based on the InAs/GaSb/AlSb material system in which QmagiQ has played a key part. In th ...

Future NASA planetary science missions have very limited access to solar power and therefore reducing the cryocooling system power input is even more critical than for earth-orbiting satellites. On this program, Creare proposes to develop and demonstrate an innovative Stirling cryocooler that efficiently produces refrigeration at 30 K and rejects heat at about 150 K. A key component of the propo ...

In order to promote and facilitate broader use of NASA and other Earth observation data sources, the Phase I research focused on development of a cloud-based distributed computation platform for building, storing, and executing complex geospatial models. Widespread access to frequent, high-resolution Earth observation imagery has created the need for innovative tools like ModelLab that will help ...

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have the potential to significantly impact modern society. While the technology for unmanned air vehicles operating day in and day out without constant human supervision is maturing steadily, much remains to be done to make these vehicles commonplace. We have identified a number of challenges that must be addressed for these vehicles to safely and efficiently conduct ...