Award Data

ACTA and Sandia National Laboratories propose to quantify and propagate substructure modeling uncertainty for reduced-order substructure models to higher levels of system assembly, thereby enabling predictive simulations of engineering designs with quantified margins and uncertainties for model-based flight qualification of complete spacecraft. A critical part of this process is the accurate mode ...

In providing an innovative solution to improving information technologies and health management systems, AGNC is proposing a significant technological achievement with the Advanced Structural Health Monitoring System for Comprehensive Real-Time Vehicle Characterization. During in-flight conditions, this system is able to not only provide the status of information such as regarding the flight envel ...

Thermoelectric (TE) generators have the advantages of no moving parts and flexibility in deployment but suffer from low heat to electricity conversion efficiencies, with a major loss component being conductive (phonon) heat transfer through the TE lattice. By using a high pressure shockwave consolidation, nanopowders can be fused into a solid bulk TE material while preserving the nanostructure. ...

During our Phase I STTR effort, Balcones Technologies, LLC and The University of Texas Center for Electromechanics (CEM) successfully achieved all Phase I objectives and developed a concept design for an active Vibration Isolation System (VIS) that fully meets all requirements defined or implied in STTR 2007-1 Subtopic T6.02. Now the Balcones Technologies - CEM team proposes to develop, test, and ...

Balcones Technologies, LLC proposes to adapt actively controlled suspension technology developed by The University of Texas at Austin Center for Electromechanics (CEM) for high performance off-road vehicles to address STTR 2009-1 Subtopic T1.02, Information Technologies for Intelligent Planetary Robots. In particular, our team will develop a concept design for an actively controlled ElectroMechan ...

Current modeling of Lunar and Martian soil erosion and debris transport caused by rocket plume impingement lacks essential physics from the peculiar granular characteristics of highly irregular regolith particles. Current granular mechanics models are based on mono-disperse spherical particles empiricism unsuitable for capturing the poly-disperse irregularly shaped grain mechanics. CFDRC and the U ...

The proposed innovation is an aircraft flight envelope monitoring system that will provide real-time in-cockpit estimations of aircraft flight envelope boundaries. The adaptable system will provide information on current and predicted aircraft performance and controllability, alerting the pilot to any aerodynamic degradation of the aircraft control surfaces. This includes heavy rain, in-flight i ...

The proposed innovation is to use the refrigerant capabilities of nitrous oxide (N2O) to provide the cooling required for reusable operation of an aerospike nozzle in conjunction with an N2O-HTPB (hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene, a synthetic rubber that is used as a binder in solid rocket motors and as a fuel in hybrid rocket motors) hybrid rocket motor. The phase change cooling as liquid N2O i ...

The proposed innovation is the replacement of existing test stand and parking lot fixtures with current SSL LED technology. The replacement fixtures will reduce energy consumption, generate less heat and provide maintenance free operation for over 50,000 hours. An explosion-proof fixture is capable of containing an internal combustion event without allowing flames or hot gasses to escape to the s ...

Pico-satellites are an emerging new class of spacecraft. Maneuverable pico-satellites require active guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) systems to perform coordinated tasks such as formation flying and automated rendezvous and docking. A compact, low power GN&C system will be fabricated and tested for use on pico-satellites. The proposed design provides 6 degrees-of-freedom (DOF) translat ...