Award Data

Physical Sciences Inc. and Purdue University propose to develop a novel approach to scavenging heat from high intensity thermal environments encountered during space missions and converting this thermal power to electrical power at high efficiency. Examples include extremely hot heat shields during vehicle entry into planetary atmospheres (Mars/Venus probes) and during high speed ascent through p ...

A top candidate ldquo;greenrdquo; monopropellant proposed as a safe replacement for hydrazine in spacecraft systems is also shown in tests to be a high performance propellant for ion electrospray thrusters.nbsp;The proposed effort is to take full advantage of these remarkable characteristics to develop an efficient bimodal ion-chemical thruster system using a common propellant supply tank.The expe ...

Urine testing is an effective method for routine health monitoring. Spectroscopy-based urine test offers a highly sensitive and accurate urine test method with much less clinical lab equipment requirement. Existing spectroscopy urine test systems are still bulky, heavy, costly, and with high power consumption and thus not suitable for astronaut health monitoring in space. Photonics integrated circ ...

An intelligent flight control system is developed with learning capabilities and a high degree of assurance that can be certified by the FAA and tested on a modular reconfigurable UAS.nbsp; Existing lack of intelligence, adaptability and high performance of current automatic flight controllers is addressed by taking advantage of high-performance computing platforms, state-of-the-art machine learni ...

This SBIR Phase I project aims to improve the mirror quality of thenbsp;PZT stack actuator DMs. With verified DM performance in terms of key performance parameters such as stroke, leakage current, speed, influence function as well asnbsp;the validity of the superposition law in the DM control, the innovation further strives to optimize the manufacturing processnbsp;to ultimately improve the mirror ...

The Space Suit Boot Binding System for Surface Missions supports the next generation space suit. The crew dons a snug fitting Inner Boot, and slides it through the xPGS Leg Assembly toward the attached Outer Boot. Two spring loaded pins integrated into the Inner Boot Sole Plate (IBSP), inboard of the crewrsquo;s toes, mate with receiving bushings on the Outer Boot Sole Plate (OBSP). The crew press ...

Annbsp;objective for future decadal study missions is to detect exo-Earths usingnbsp;space-based telescopes with segmented primary mirrors (PMs). Wavefront control fornbsp;such telescopes will require small-stroke, high-precision deformable mirrorsnbsp;(DMs). The proposed innovation is a segmented microelectromechanical DM thatnbsp;can benbsp;used in NASA test beds as a surrogate for segmented PMs ...

Triton Systems is developing an unpowered thermostatic film for application to spacecraft surfaces. We call our approach Phase Change Thermochromic Radiator (PCTR); it self-switches from low to high emittance above a designed temperature setpoint Tc, causing a surface in space to radiate heat only when it becomes too warm and conserving heat otherwise. Key to the operation of PCTR is a phase chang ...

In this proposal we will develop key enabling components of, environmentally ruggedized, smaller size, radiation hardened and higher precision inertial navigations sensors.nbsp; Such sensors are necessary for various future NASA applications. These applications include scientific exploration of earth, the planets, moons, comets, and asteroids of our solar system using smaller and lower cost spacec ...

We propose to demonstrate feasibility for new glass capillary array (GCA) manufacturing techniques for making large format (ge;100 times; 100 mm2) imaging quality microchannel plate (MCP) electron amplifiers. MCPs are generally accepted to be essential components in low-noise, high-sensitivity photonic imagers. Incom#39;s ALD-GCA-MCP technology offers several advantages for space-based imaging ove ...