Award Data

The objective of this proposal is to develop three unique energy harvesting technologies utilizing our existing research strengths that will be of interest and utility to NASA applications and environmental conditions. By developing multiple technologies, NASA will be able to harvest energy from multiple waste energy sources, namely environmental vibrations, thermal energy, and solar flux. These d ...

Plasma Controls, LLC (SBC) and Colorado State University (RI) will mature an energy and species plasma diagnostic for use with plasma thrusters. The combined Energy and Velocity Analyzer for Distributions of Electric Rockets, or the lsquo;E-VADERrsquo;, is needed especially for characterizing the plasma plume of Hall thrusters, where researchers desire to know ion energies and charged species frac ...

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 ...

Thermoelectric devices offer a simple and reliable means to convert radioisotope thermal energy into useable electrical power.Present thermoelectric devices based on bulk materials are limited by low conversion efficiencies, due to fundamental limitation of identifying materials with both a high electrical conductivity and low thermal conductivity. Nanowires provides a means to circumvent this lim ...

In this STTR Phase I program, Structured Materials Industries, Inc. (SMI) and Arizona State University (ASU) will develop a SiGeSn based light emitter device technology on Si, which will be a key ingredient for Si-based integrated photonics applications, such as in lab-on-a-chip integrated chemical and biological spectrometers for landers, astronaut health monitoring, front-end and back-end for re ...

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 ...

Suppression of noise from aircraft is a vital NASA goal, especially important for the vision of Urban Air Mobility. Small urban aircraft may utilize Distributed Electric Propulsion along with advanced structural and electric motor/storage technologies to achieve the necessary flight capability. However, these aircraft utilize propellers or fans to achieve the necessary thrust, with attendant commu ...

The landing surface damage and liberation of debris particles caused by rocket plume impingement flow during spacecraft propulsive landing on unprepared surfaces of Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies poses a high risk for robotic and human exploration activities. Simply determining whether the plume induced loads exceed the bedrock bearing capacity threshold is not sufficient. An integrated m ...

The Conjugate Etalon Spectral Imaging (CESI) concept enables the development of miniature instruments with high spectral resolution, suitable for LEO missions aboard CubeSat or nanosat buses, including constellation missions providing global coverage and characterization of dynamic phenomena. Small size, low power, and a simplified instrument architecture support missions for earth observation, a ...

Opterus proposes to develop braided thin ply composite tapes. The tapes will be braided from ultra-thin spread-tow unidirectional carbon and glass ribbons and will enable a new source and form factor for thin-ply textiles. The resulting tapes will be especially useful for thin high strain composite space deployable structures where they will allow bias plies in long parts without requiring seams. ...