Award Data

In the future, exploration missions will benefit greatly from advanced metrology capabilities, particularly structural health monitoring systems that provide real time in-situ diagnostics and evaluation of structural integrity. Safety- and mission-critical components and systems will be instrumented with embedded sensors to provide a real-time indication of health, helping to ensure that America's ...

Sierra Engineering Inc. and Purdue University propose to develop a non-intrusive plume instrument capable of detecting and diagnosing combustion instability. This Stability Diagnostic System (SDS) will be designed, assembled, and tested during this effort. The SDS will include a high-speed video camera and multiple photodiode detectors for observing the plume. It will also include a software pa ...

A multi-roller "oil free" traction drive is under development for use on vehicles used in hostile environments like those that will be encountered on planetary surfaces. The drive has been designed to meet the operating requirements of for an Apollo–class Lunar Rover. A drive geometry optimization study was conducted establishing that a 30-to-1, two-row, four planet multi-roller drive offers the ...

Diffraction gratings are powerful tools for the spectral analysis of electromagnetic radiation. Properties of gratings are determined by available fabrication means – which have not changed substantially in 50 years. Modern photolithography, now approaching nanometer resolution, may revolutionize the way many gratings are made and, through greater design flexibility, how gratings function. Over ...

To develop reliable THz sources with high power and high DC-RF efficiency, Virginia Diodes, Inc. will develop a thorough understanding of the complex interactions that occur within a chain of nonlinear frequency multipliers. These nonlinear interactions can cause rapid variations in power as the frequency or input power are tuned, including nulls and power surges that can damage individual compone ...

Long duration missions to the Moon and Mars will place new demands upon components and systems leading to increasingly stringent requirements for safety, quality, maintainability and repair. In-Situ Fabrication and Repair (ISFR) of components is a key exploration initiative technology element managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. In this Phase 1 STTR project, Luna Innovations Incorpora ...

This proposal effort is concerned with the development of a novel multidisciplinary optimization scheme and computer software for the effective design of advanced aerospace vehicles. Such vehicles are characterized by unprecedented levels of aero-structural-controls-propulsion interactions, a multidisciplinary simulation is essential for their effective design, vehicle can be accomplished by emplo ...

Aerotonomy, Incorporated and the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), will develop enabling technologies for an aircraft that is capable of Extreme Short Takeoff and Landing (ESTOL), while retaining efficient transonic cruise performance, by applying a comprehensive, systems-based design and analysis approach to innovative combinations of active flow control methodologies. The development of t ...

The proposed project consists of developing a prototype exciter/igniter unit that can operate to a subset of expected flight performance requirements. The main focus of this development effort will be the physical integration of a small, compact exciter with a "flight like" igniter or spark plug. This exciter/igniter prototype will represent the exciter/igniter units used to generate sparks that ...

Aurora Flight Sciences proposes to develop specialized algorithms and software decision-aiding tools for four-dimensional (4D) vehicle-centric, tactical trajectory management (TTM), derived from algorithms developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to perform similar functions in military scenarios. These algorithms, based on the concept of receding horizon mixed-integer linear ...