Award Data

This effort to improve the capabilities of the ESM system will increase the reliability and reduce lifecycle support costs of the Radar Wideband (RWB) subsystem on submarines. Analog to digital converter (A/D) based digital receivers will be applied to yield improvements in Radar signal acquisition and processing. In-phase and Quadrature (I/Q) data streams will be created from which intra pulse mo ...

Radiation-cooled, bipropellant thrust chambers are being considered for the ascent/descent engines and reaction control systems for NASA missions such as Mars Sample Return and Orion MPCV. Currently, iridium-lined rhenium combustion chambers are the state-of-the-art for in-space engines. NASA's Advanced Materials Bipropellant Rocket (AMBR) engine, a 150-lbf iridium-rhenium chamber produced by Pla ...

Non-toxic monopropellants have been developed that provide better performance than toxic hydrazine. Formulations based on hydroxylammonium nitrate (HAN) have superior performance as compared to hydrazine with Isp (261 seconds, 12% greater), higher density and volumetric impulse (60% greater density-impulse), lower melting point, and much lower toxicity (No self contained breathing apparatus requir ...

During Phases I and II, Photon-X successfully demonstrated the feasibility of applying its patented Spatial Phase Imaging technology to the problem of non-contact 3D imaging during a rollover test and delivered a viable prototype system. During Phase IIB, Photon-X will continue to refine the system in preparation for commercialization. Photon-X will use this opportunity to add an additional camer ...

Picometrix's time-domain terahertz (TD-THz) non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technology could be used to inspect space flight structures such as inflatable space habitats, thermal protection systems (TUFI-type tiles, SOFI TPS), for voids, disbonds, and damage such as tearing and micron-meteorite impact. The current instrumentation paradigm is that a multi-purpose TD-THz control unit is used ...

The objective of the proposal is to demonstrate the feasibility of a generic package that provides high vacuum, temperature control and vibration isolation for a wide range of high performance (tactical and navigation grade) micromachined inertial sensors. Inertial sensors (accelerometers and gyroscopes) are now widely used in consumer and industrial applications. However, for high performance nav ...

Development of next generation energetic materials has been slow primarily due to a lack of fundamental understanding of the physics and chemistry of these materials. The strategy for development historically has been a trial-and-error experimental approach which possesses considerable risk of failure. With the advent of high speed computers and sophisticated molecular modeling techniques, it is n ...

Virtual EM is proposing a platform coupling technique for improving efficiency of electrically small antennas on ground, sea and air vehicles. The the proposed approach, a portion of the platform becomes the extension of the antenna and hence result in higher performance. Technique has been demonstrated already with the commercial automotive applications and a revised approach is proposed here.

Naval operations with towed arrays have identified areas for improvements including performance, power consumption and reliability. The SeaLandAire Technologies, Inc. / L-3 Chesapeake Sciences Corporation team will address these concerns by incorporating a cost effective, high performance, small hydrophone paired with a low power, volumetrically efficient telemetry electronics. The combination of ...

In this Phase I SBIR project we propose to demonstrate the key elements of a practical, field-deployable non-contact time-domain terahertz (TD-THz) system for rapid detection of submarine hull defects such as corrosion and gouges hidden beneath acoustic hull coatings, hull coating material defects, and hull coating adhesion defects. The key feasibility areas addressed will be developing the high-r ...