Award Data

For long-term exploratory space travel, there will be a critical need for in-situ diagnosis and assessment of biological specimens from symptomatic astronauts, especially, disease pathogens (virus, bacterium, or fungus) and microbial contaminants. Hence, a real-time, non-culture-based microbial detection, identification and quantification system for on-flight monitoring and evaluation of pathogens ...

NASA plans to use intelligent planetary rovers to improve the productivity and safety of human explorers. A key challenge in using robots to support human exploration is orienting remote personnel about robot operations as latency and communication constraints make real-time monitoring impractical. Communication bandwidth will be limited, making it essential to downlink important information early ...

Lynntech proposes a novel flow control methodology for airfoils undergoing dynamic stall. Dynamic stall refers to an aerodynamic phenomenon that is experienced by airfoils that undergo rapid changes in the flow angle of attack such as rotorcraft based airfoils, flapping wing technologies as well as fixed wing aircrafts undergoing sudden angle of attack changes. Dynamic stall is inherently an unste ...

Balcones Technologies, LLC proposes to adapt technologies developed by and resident in The University of Texas at Austin Center for Electromechanics (CEM) in the areas of dynamically controlled precision actuators and flywheel energy storage systems to address STTR 2011-1 Subtopic T3.01, Technologies for Space Power and Propulsion. In particular, our team will develop a concept design for a repla ...

Research suggests that: (1) orbital debris has reached an unstable point whereby, even with no future launches, the amount of debris will continue to grow through collisions among large-body debris, and (2) removing as few as five large objects each year can stabilize debris growth. For large-body active debris removal (ADR), active technologies are required to safely and efficiently stabilize and ...

Single multi-sensor teleoperated systems are not optimal for NASA exploratory missions because they limit the coverage area and scope of exploration and create a single point for mission failure. A better solution would use many robots cooperating to maximize exploration area and location accuracy while minimizing total system power and weight. The goal of this research is to investigate pulsed ...

The NASA Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT) has identified a "carbon-carbon nozzle (domestic source)" as a "Top Technical Challenge" in the 2011-2016 timeframe in the "Launch Propulsion Systems Roadmap" document. This program, by utilizing a demonstrably capable team with a deep history in the manufacture, testing, and analysis of C/C materials, will address this need by developing a Lyocell ...

An accurate predictive capability of coupled fluid-structure interaction in propulsion system is crucial in the development of NASA's new Space Launch System (SLS). This STTR effort will develop a multi-disciplinary tool to improve CFD prediction capability in modeling coupled fluid structure interaction (FSI) phenomena for many SLS propulsion applications such as flexible inhibitors for SRMs ...

Since Mars rovers have limited life span, NASA wants to maximize the exploration activities during this period. Rock sample analysis is one of the main tasks of rover missions. Traditionally, rock selection is decided by human operators. Due to long communication delay, manual selection process is time-consuming. There is a strong need to develop an automatic software system to automate the proces ...

NASA is interested in advancing green technology research for achieving sustainable and environmentally friendly energy sources. Thermo-electric power generation (TEPG) has exceptionally rich potential to fulfill this need. A TEPG module requires (1) material that can provide high figure of merit while still providing efficient heat control; (2) low resistance ohmic contacts that operate at high t ...