Award Data

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 ...

Previous efforts have demonstrated that targeted observations of tropical storms by UAS can provide extremely valuable data sets for improving forecasts and models, but are also difficult to obtain. A number of obstacles including regulations and the distance required to intercept evolving storms have limited the number of land based flights. The use of airborne deployed UAS have recently overcome ...

This project will develop and demonstrate an inexpensive and portable calibration system for low-cost aerosol sensors. Current calibration methods are cost prohibitive and lack generalizability from one location (or season) to the next, making them impractical for implementation. Access Sensor Technologies (AST) proposes to improve and validate a solar powered aerosol reference calibrator (SPARC) ...

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. ...

Absent an atmosphere, the limit for a minimum-orbit altitude (lt; 50 km) at the Moon, or other airless body, is currently bounded by the technological limitations of the guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) subsystem. Breakthrough improvements in this subsystem will enable new scientific investigations, such as (1) low altitude, direct sampling of the lunar particles naturally lofted by the com ...

Quantifying atmospheric aerosol, clouds and precipitation processes are critical needs for understanding climate and environmental change, a NASA objective. The formation of ice in the atmosphere depends on the nature and abundance of ice nucleating particles (INP), and has major implications for precipitation and cloud properties. Observational capabilities are required to advance understanding o ...

The goal of the proposed project is ultimately to provide a tool for commercial and government satellite operators and designers that can be used to identify the cause and monitor the real time likelihood of on-orbit satellite anomalies. More specifically, the tool will provide real time situational awareness and information for identifying whether an observed satellite anomaly is likely related t ...

In the next decade, quantum technologies will provide revolutionary advances in communications, sensing and metrology, information processing, timekeeping, and navigation. Of particular interest to this NASA solicitation is the transformative potential of quantum technology in the realm of communications. Furthermore, transmission of quantum information over arbitrary distances raises new possibil ...