Award Data

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The abrasive, reactive, and ubiquitous nature of lunar regolith created significant and serious problems during the Apollo moon missions. In this Phase I, Agave BioSystems, in collaboration with Dr. Randy Vander Wal of the Universities Space Research Association, propose to develop next generation smart filters using novel carbon nanotube (CNT)-based structures in electrostatic devices. Since CN ...

New technology is needed for sensing and characterizing incipient defects, and assessing the effects of aging in aerospace components. Next generation materials, including nickel-based superalloys that are exceedingly difficult to inspect with existing technology are being adopted by designers and manufacturers. The ability to ascertain the remaining life of a spacecraft component, and develop mit ...

NASA has identified the need for the development of lightweight structures technologies to support Lunar Lander and Lunar Habitats programs and for the transfer of relevant technology to Crew Exploration Vehicle and Crew Launch Vehicle programs. NASA further calls for revolutionary advances in radiation shielding materials and structures technologies to protect humans from the hazards of space ra ...

With the increasing power demands and longer life spans of space vehicles, their thermal management becomes ever more critical. Accompanying this is an unprecedented need for reduction in spacecraft size and weight. However, reduced weight leads to higher power densities, and waste-heat dissipation densities have grown by an order of magnitude with the use of smaller, more powerful electronics. ...

NASA is continuing its development of electric propulsion engines for various applications. Efforts have been directed toward both large and small thrusters, depending on the end use. A current program is focused on the development of a miniature thruster. Development of a Miniature Xenon Ion (MiXI) thruster will enable precision spacecraft positioning and formation maneuvers for formation-flyi ...

NanoSonic proposes to develop a low-weight, non-invasive in situ autonomous health-monitoring system for crewmembers' lunar extravehicular activity (EVA). This novel sensor technology aims at monitoring health status to improve comfort and efficiency of astronaut as well as to eliminate catastrophic failure to the individual and mission. The sensor system would consist of a fully-interconnected, ...

Photovoltaic arrays for future deep space NASA missions demand multiple functionalities. They must efficiently generate electrical power, have very large areas and very low areal mass densities, mechanical flexibility to allow them to be compactly stowed and deployed in space, and the ability to simply survive and operate in the deep space environment. The objective of this NASA program is to de ...

Negative index materials (NIMs) offer tremendous potential for the formation of highly compact as well as large-area deployable thin-film optical components. Omega Optics and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) propose to design and prototype photonic crystal (PC) based NIM optical components for space telescope and beam scanner applications. "Coating" metallic gratings on the su ...

This Phase I SBIR project investigates a novel approach to vector magnetometry based on high precision measurements of the total magnetic field. The calibration is based on the measurement of the Larmor frequency of an atomic vapor. The accuracy should be sufficient to determine the curl of the magnetic field from measurement points separated by about 80 meters. A novel magnetic modulation tech ...