Award Data

NASA's future human exploration missions will include remotely operated rovers performing surface exploration and science, as well as free-flyers to reduce the need for human Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA). As astronauts move deeper into space, it will be necessary for them to manage these robotic assets with less support from ground controllers. A flexible approach is needed to build and revise p ...

Selective laser melting, referred to as "Direct Metal Laser Sintering"(DMLS), "Metal Powder Bed Fusion" or "3D Printing" is an additive manufacturing process which allows extremely thin wall and complex structures. Off-axis aspherics are as easily produced as simple spherical optical surfaces. Nickel 11-13 % phosphorus alloy is the only hard, very fine grain, corrosion resistant material that can ...

We propose to build and commercialize a working prototype Geospatial Decision Support Toolkit (GeoKit). GeoKit will enable scientists, agencies, and stakeholders to create and deploy their own web based applications containing maps, forms, algorithms, and a rich set of functionality related to visualization, analysis, reporting, querying, and publication of geospatial data and information. GeoKit ...

Future NASA planetary science missions will incorporate detectors, sensors, shields, and telescopes that must be cooled to cryogenic temperatures. These missions have very limited access to solar power and therefore reducing the cryocooling system power is more critical than for earth-orbiting satellites. On this program, Creare proposes to develop and demonstrate an innovative Stirling cryocool ...

Both pyrolysis and incineration steps have been considered as the key solid waste processing step for a Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS). Pyrolysis is more amenable to handling mixed solid waste streams in a microgravity environment, but produces a more complex product stream. Incineration produces a simpler product stream, but the incineration of mixed solids is a complex unit op ...

A key objective for NASA's next rover mission to Mars is the demonstration of oxygen production from atmospheric carbon dioxide. Such a technology demonstration may pave the way for a future sample return mission to the Red Planet as well as possibly a future manned mission to Mars. A necessary component in such a demonstration system is a blower or compressor that can deliver the necessary carb ...

This Phase I SBIR will establish the feasibility of developing a collinear three wavelength source for an in-situ, 1800, back scatter nephelometer. The three wavelength source is being developed to facilitate on-board validation measurements of airborne remote backscatter lidar. Currently, commercial nephelometers utilized for in-situ validation measurements employ wavelengths that are both not ...

Turboelectric aircraft with gas turbines driving electric generators connected to electric propulsion motors have the potential to transform the aircraft design space by decoupling power generation from propulsion. Resulting aircraft designs such as blended-wing bodies with distributed propulsion can provide the large reductions in emissions, fuel burn, and noise required to make air transportati ...

We propose to develop antimony-based focal plane arrays (FPAs) for NASA's imaging and spectroscopy applications in the spectral band from visible to shortwave-infrared, viz. wavelengths from 0.5 - 2.5 microns. We will leverage recent breakthroughs in the performance of midwave and longwave infrared FPAs based on the InAs/GaSb/AlSb material system in which QmagiQ has played a key part. In these s ...

Regenerative life support systems and in situ resource utilization systems are vital for NASA's future space exploration missions to maximize self-sufficiency and minimize the resupply of consumables. One of the critical needs for these systems is a gravity-insensitive condenser to collect water in a high-temperature gas stream from these systems, as requested by Topic H03.3. To this end, Creare ...