Award Data

Middle-wave infrared (MWIR, 3-5¿¿m) photodetectors are of great importance in numerous NASA applications, including thermal remote sensing for carbon-based trace gases (CH4, CO2, and CO), heat capacity mapping for earth resource locating, environment and atmosphere monitoring, and IR spectroscopy. However, existing MWIR photodetectors are require a low operating temperature, below 77K to achieve ...

Aerodyne Research, Inc. and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst will collaborate to develop laser desorption ionization (LDI) mass spectrometric analysis of organic analytes of interest in planetary exploration, based on microchip laser illumination. The key advantage of microchip lasers in this application is their much smaller size and weight than lasers used to date for LDI. These lase ...

Agiltron proposes to develop an extremely compact and high sensitivity uncooled near- and mid-infrared (NMIR) spectrometer engine for planetary compositional analysis and mapping. In this program, we will produce lead salt-based IR detector materials with single crystalline-like oriented thin film structures which will increase the majority charge carrier mobility by two orders of magnitude. Excep ...

Surface exploration of planetary environments with current robotic technologies relies heavily on human control and power-hungry active sensors to perform even the most elementary low-level functions. Ideally, a robot should be capable of autonomously exploring and interacting within an unknown environment without relying on human input or suboptimal sensors. Behaviors such as exploration of unkno ...

The innovation being developed in this program is a Mg Hall Effect Thruster system that would open the door for In-Situ Resource Utilization based solar system exploration. Magnesium is light and easy to ionize. Performance advantages of a Mg thruster include far higher specific impulse and less life limiting erosion. Additional advantages include low propellant cost and low pressure propellant ...

System requirements elicitation is a time consuming process with an extremely high penalty for errors. Mistakes made in the requirements phase will cost 50 times more to fix while they are uncovered in the production phase as compared to fixing them in the requirements phase. VIStology and Northeastern University are proposing to develop an approach for supporting the requirements elicitation phas ...

Global Technology Connection, Inc., in collaboration with their academic partners and industrial partners propose to develop a prototype integrated physics-based model and accelerated testing process that will reduce the qualification time and testing required for Li-ion cells used in LEO/MEO satellite applications. The integrated physics-based model will focus on three key Li-ion cell degradatio ...

NOVA Scientific, Inc., teamed with the Detector Group of the ORNL Neutron Sciences Directorate (NScD) of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, proposes to construct very large area Microchannel Plate neutron detectors. Larger format (20 cm square) tileable detectors will serve an exceptionally broad range of government agencies from neutron scattering detectors for DOE to nuclear material panel detectors ...

Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ECRH) has emerged as one of the most important tools for plasma heating and stabilization in magnetically confined fusion devices. In particular, ECRH is the most effective tool for suppressing Neoclassical Tearing Modes (NTM) in both currently operating tokamaks such as DIII-D, General Atomics and future tokamaks such as ITER. Current generation of MW gyrotro ...

Goals of 80% clean energy production for the United States by 2035 and 20% of the countrys power being supplied by wind energy by 2030 imply nearly a tenfold increase in wind power production. This means that the need for forecast information will extend to longer projection windows with increasing penetration of wind power into the grid and also with diminishing reserve margins to meet peak loads ...