Award Data

To address the urgent need for 3D flash-lidar technology for landing on solar system bodies and for spacecraft rendezvous and docking with satellites, an effort is proposed to fabricate, characterize, and test a versatile, high-sensitivity InGaAs APD 3D flash lidar and to advance the technology-readiness level (TRL) of lidar technologies suitable for NASA mission requirements. Leveraging an existi ...

This Phase II project aims to assemble the key set of sensor modalities that are needed to reliably view the key process anomalies and properties of laser powder bed fusion. The research team will down-select from the Phase I sensors investigated and integrate the sensors into a sensor fusion software package that facilitates data collection and synchronization, and eventually feedback control of ...

This STTR program will mature high density, high regression rate hybrid rocket motor technology through TRL6 through the design, fabrication, and testing of third and fourth stage nanosatellite motors, while preparing designs and sizing for booster stages.nbsp; Hybrid Rockets offer substantially lower cost compared to storable and cryogenic bipropellant systems, but currently suffer from poor pack ...

Augmented reality (AR) offers the ability to enhance existing combat medic training by including perceptual cues and adaptive training elements to traditional simulation-based training using manikins. Unveil has developed a training system called the Macrocognitive AR Trainer (MART). MART is designed to foster the development of macrocognitive skills (e.g., sensemaking, assessment skills, mental m ...

Distributed Spacecraft Missions (DSM) architectures provide unique scientific and programmatic benefits including multipoint in-situ measurements, multi-angle viewpoints, and improved understanding of the connections between separately measured phenomena and their time variations. However, these missions impose significant operational demands on ground tracking resources and mission operators alik ...

NASA wants a cost-effective atmospheric remote sensing system providing accurate temperature and humidity profiles to least 10 km height in clear and cloudy conditions. Radiometrics Microwave Profiler (MP) products currently provide accurate temperature and humidity profiles in good agreement with radiosondes to 3 km height. Good agreement can be extended beyond 10 km height using variational retr ...

Solid rocket motor (SRM) design requires detailed understanding of the slag accumulation process in order to: predict thrust continuity, optimize propellant conversion efficiency, predict coning effects from sloshing, and to assess potential orbital debris (slag) hazard. Current state-of-the-art models for SRM environment do not have the capability to simulate the accumulation and dynamics of slag ...

Launch vehicles experience extreme acoustic loads dominated by rocket plume interactions with ground structures during liftoff, which can produce damaging vibro-acoustic loads on the vehicle and payloads if not properly understood and mitigated against. Existing capabilities for modeling turbulent plume physics are too dissipative to accurately resolve the acoustic propagation and detailed vehicle ...

Among numerous technological advances sought in order to facilitate human space travel, innovations are needed that supports the mass- and energy-efficient maintenance of closed air, water, and waste systems in spacecraft habitats that operate on planetary environments such as Mars and within microgravity. Waste-water treatment system on board the ISS is one such system that has lifetime/durabilit ...

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 ...