Award Data

Through the proposed NASA STTR, NanoSonic and Virginia Tech will design and empirically optimize an innovative, commercially scalable additive manufacturing process integrating reactively deposited HybridSil polyimide nanocomposites for next-generation Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) employed on human rated spacecraft. NanoSonicrsquo;s material technology and Virginia Techrsquo;s additive manufac ...

For long duration space missions beyond LEO, the complexity of the missions and the latency of communications with Earth will require HPC systems that would be prohibitively expensive if qualified under traditional guidelines for high reliability space systems. There is a wealth COTS hardware that could potentially be used for HPC systems for non-critical tasks within heavily shielded spacecraft c ...

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP) research is part of NASA effort to improve aircraft fuel efficiency, emissions, and noise levels. New secondary battery chemistries are required to meet the 500 ndash; 700 Wh/kg cell level specific energy needs of UAM, all-electric helicopters and regional passenger aircraft. The cycle life, currently at asymp; 1500 ndash; 3000 cycles, also needs substantial i ...

Technology currently used for terrestrial navigation is extremely limited in the challenging environments on icy moons and ocean worlds such as Europa. Autonomous platforms used to collect data from beneath these ice and ocean surfaces cannot depend on access to satellite or any other electromagnetic communication. Autonomous systems in these environments are required to perform highly-complex tas ...

Water recovery from wastewater sources is key to long duration human exploration missions. Without substantial water recovery, life support system launch weights are practically impossible. Water recovery systems currently used on the international space station (ISS) are complex, involving high temperature and pressures to recycle water from humidity condensate and urine.nbsp; The process also us ...

Today many spacecraft carry two propulsion options: high thrust required for high acceleration maneuvers such as orbit insertion and rapid response; and low thrust required for station keeping and less critical maneuvers. A new class of non-toxic monopropellants, such as AF-M315E and LMP-103S, perform well in both high and low thrust regimes. Significant investments are maturing both monopropellan ...

The objective of this STTR research effort is to demonstrate the use of select metal-organic framework (MOF) constructs as active, multi-analyte sensing element in spacecraft water monitoring systems. MOFs are extended one, two, and three-dimensional coordination networks with uniform porosity and large surface area. The rational selection of both the metal cluster nodes and multi-dentate linkers ...

Research in Flight (RIF) and Auburn University are offering the development of an advanced, robust tool and methodology that allows the simulation and modeling of gust and wake vortex encounters for Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP) enabled Urban Air Mobility (UAM) vehicle concepts. DEP enabled UAM concepts offer the potential for large performance improvements by exploiting favorable synergie ...

Rotating Detonation Engine (RDE) design is challenging due to the lack of in-depth understanding of many key mixing and combustion processes. The RDE flow field is a nonuniform mixture of fuel and oxidizer concentrations with strong injector effects, large turbulence effects, multiple shockwaves, and shear layers. These inhomogeneities can lead to significant combustion inefficiencies which have a ...

Cornerstone Research Group Inc. (CRG) proposes to advance the state-of-the-art in space vehicle Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) through in-situ application and curing of a proprietary new resin technology called MG Resin, a family of thermoset formulations. The resins are being explored with DARPA, MDA, NASA, and the Army for a range of applications including C/C hot structures, TPS, syntactic in ...