Award Data

Absent an atmosphere, the limit for a minimum-orbit altitude (lt; 50 km) at the Moon, or other airless body, is currently bounded by the technological limitations of the guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) subsystem. Breakthrough improvements in this subsystem will enable new scientific investigations, such as (1) low altitude, direct sampling of the lunar particles naturally lofted by the com ...

The Interdisciplinary Consulting Corporation (IC2) proposes to continue development of dual-axis shear stress sensors that are applicable in ground test facilities covering a large range of flow speeds in response to NASA SBIR 2018 Phase I solicitation subtopic A1.08. The proposed sensing system addresses a critically unmet measurement need in NASArsquo;s technology portfolio, specifically the abi ...

Quantifying atmospheric aerosol, clouds and precipitation processes are critical needs for understanding climate and environmental change, a NASA objective. The formation of ice in the atmosphere depends on the nature and abundance of ice nucleating particles (INP), and has major implications for precipitation and cloud properties. Observational capabilities are required to advance understanding o ...

The purpose of this Phase II proposal is development of a completely operational 4.3 GHz passive sensor system that will be compliant in the newnbsp;Wireless Avionics Intra-Communications (WAIC) band.nbsp;nbsp;This band will be useful to both space and aerospace, and the center frequency significantly advances SAW sensor device capabilities to very high frequencies.nbsp;nbsp;The focus of the effor ...

The experience of building the NEA Scout solar Sail resulted in the realization that new manufacturing technology would be required to build solar sails significantly larger than NEA Scout. During Phase I, NeXolve successfully developed and demonstrated fab and fold processes and scalable-modular pathfinder mechanisms that can be fully developed to support fabrication and packaging of larger solar ...

Current noise prediction methods are ill-suited for the design of future nozzle geometries as they are either too computationally expensive or do not contain the necessary physics to adequately predict noise from desired nozzle types. As such, there is a need for innovative technologies and methods for noise prediction to enable acoustic optimization of multi-stream, 3D nozzles to meet the noise g ...

Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) are needed to protect spacecraft and crew from high temperature propellant gases, heating from solar radiation, and heating from friction with planetary atmospheres.nbsp; For example, ceramic based Thermal Barrier Coatings (TBC) are being applied to rocket engine components such as combustion chambers, injector face plates, and nozzle extensions to allow higher tem ...

In the next decade, quantum technologies will provide revolutionary advances in communications, sensing and metrology, information processing, timekeeping, and navigation. Of particular interest to this NASA solicitation is the transformative potential of quantum technology in the realm of communications. Furthermore, transmission of quantum information over arbitrary distances raises new possibil ...

To meet NASArsquo;s need for compact, low-cost and autonomous deployable solar array systems to support near-term Lunar and future Martian exploration objectives, Roccor proposes to continue developing thenbsp; Articulating Solar Panel Energy (ASPEN) system by replacing the z-folded membrane PV blanket baselined for use in the CTSA architecture with an array of discrete modular thin-substrate sola ...

Sensors for spaceborne aerosol, cloud, and ocean (ACO) lidar must possess very wide dynamic range to cover the weakest stratospheric returns from the Rayleigh region and the strongest atmospheric targets, such as bright water clouds and strong reflections from the ocean surface. Currently this is not possible using a single sensor. To address NASArsquo;s need for next-generation spaceborne lidar s ...