Award Data

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 ...

The ability to restore large amounts of vented gaseous helium (GHe) at rocket test sites preserves the GHe and reduces operating cost. The used GHe is vented into the atmosphere, is non-recoverable, and costs NASA millions dollars per year. Helium, which is non-renewable and irreplaceable once released into the atmosphere, is continuously consumed by rocket test facilities at NASA centers such a ...

Computational tools that accurately predict the performance of electric propulsion devices are highly desirable by NASA and the broader electric propulsion community. Large investments in running the long duration test programs (> 20 kHrs) at NASA GRC can be reduced with computer models and allow more focus on exploring the NEXT ion thruster design for future space missions. The current state of e ...

The overall objective of the proposal is to design, develop and demonstrate a potentially portable Compton x-ray scatter 3D-imaging system by using specially designed rotationally movable x-ray source and x-ray detector, and the development of a suitable 3D-processing computer model. The proposed rotational configuration will allow the acquisition of multiple projections or images 360

With the capacity and performance of FPGAs suitable for space borne applications continuously increasing, the design of FPGAs is becoming increasingly complex involving trading off or simultaneous optimization of space, speed, and power. RNET and ANL are proposing to develop software infrastructure that facilitates automatic performance tuning of FPGAs in terms of speed, power, and size. We introd ...

A spacecraft thermal control system must keep the vehicle, avionics and atmosphere (if crewed) within a defined temperature range. Since water is non-toxic and good for heat transport, it is typically used as the coolant that circulates within the crew cabin boundary. This loop then interfaces with another low freeze point fluid, such as ammonia, for transport of heat to a radiator where the tempe ...

The proposed contract effort is for the design, development and proof-of-concept demontration testing of a low cost, pressure-fed liquid rocket booster propulsion system concept. The contract focus will be on four key component technologies in the booster system; (1)composite propellant tanks, (2)pump-fed propellant heat exchanger, (3)self-cooled engine with altitude-compensating nozzle, and (4)a ...

This proposal is in response to the Defense Health Agency 2017 Phase I SBIR topic 17B-005.The approach is the use of a membrane oxygen pump using newly developed nano-thickness membranes with all the layers less than 1 micron total.Nanometer thickness membranes enable more oxygen output per surface area at temperatures of 300-600 C than current state-of-the -art 600-800 C membranes that are 50-300 ...

Reducing the allowable concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in spacecraft is a critical need for NASA. The system now used on the International Space Station (ISS) is the carbon dioxide removal assembly (CDRA). While it has performed well on the ISS, managers have concluded that using the device to reach the new ppCO2 limit of 2.0 mm Hg is not practical and a new method is needed.In this projec ...

The research objective of the proposed work is to demonstrate feasibility of utilizing extensible modeling to create an AM knowledgebase for copper alloy, GrCop-84, and utilize it to design an AM process for GrCop-84. The work plan has three tasks: (1) Utilize process modeling to demonstrate feasibility of predicting AM process parameters for alloy GrCop-84 for the powder bed and blown powder proc ...