Award Data

We propose the development of a user-friendly software tool for estimating the electric field distributions within spacecraft enclosures based on the Power Balance (PwB) method and enhanced by a database of experimentally determined Absorption Cross-Sections (ACS) of common equipment, components and cables.The software will be built around an already developed PwB solver that determines the statis ...

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 ...

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. ...

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 aim of the proposed program is to design metasurface structures to manipulate electromagnetic waves of extremelynbsp;different frequencies, from visible light to THz.

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 ...

This program will design, fabricate, and test a dual mode propulsion system in a non-flight-weight configuration using a novel energetic, low-toxicity ionic liquid for both high thrust (conventional catalyst-based monopropulsion system) and low thrust (electrospray) engines. Non-Stoichiometric HydroxyEthyl Hydrazinium Nitrate (NSHEHN), developed under Army and NASA SBIR programs, will be used for ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...