Award Data

Thick, 3D woven carbon/phenolic composites offer potential improvement over legacy thermal protection systems (TPS) for re-entry vehicle heat shield applications. However due to the scale and complexity of typical re-entry vehicle structures, it is likely that multiple 3D woven panels would need to laid up to create the overall heat shield, creating a potential weak spots at the panel joints. ...

Lithium-Ion batteries have been a main source of energy for many aerospace applications over the past decade. Future space missions are facing a number of challenging requirements, including significant increase in specific energy, approaching 500 Wh/kg, and energy density of 700 Wh/l at cell level. Compared to state-of-the-art technology today, a reduction in mass and volume are necessary, along ...

This SBIR Phase I effort will demonstrate the feasibility of developing a tunable, high-power, narrowband seed laser source integrated with a broadband, waveguide-based second harmonic generation (SHG) module to allow in situ alignment, component testing and calibration across the tuning range of fiber-based lidar systems for measuring atmospheric oxygen concentrations. The lidar is being develope ...

The overall goal of this SBIR effort is development of a space qualifiable, compact, frequency stabilized seed laser with low SWaP for routine use in NASA LaRC's High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) flight-based and future space-based systems. In addition to refining process parameters to optimize performance, a major goal of the Phase II effort is risk mitigation through accelerated life testin ...

This SBIR Phase I proposes to establish the feasibility of using a space qualifiable Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based digital controller to autonomously acquire and wavelength lock a tunable seed laser to a specified atomic or molecular reference. Successful development of this technology, due to its compact, efficient, and reliable design, is an important step towards enabling deployme ...

This Phase I SBIR will establish the feasibility of developing compact, robust, integrated components suitable for atomic interferometry. AdvR's design is enabled by capitalizing on robust, well-commercialized, low-noise telecom components with high reliability and declining costs which will help to drive the widespread deployment of this system. The key innovation is the combination of current ...

This SBIR Phase I effort will demonstrate the feasibility of developing a fully packaged, efficient, short pulse, high repetition rate frequency doubled micro-chip laser for use in NASA-JPL's Time Resolved Raman Spectrometer (TRRS) to analyze elemental and mineral compositions in remote planetary environments. Time Resolved Raman Spectroscopy can identify mineral content in natural geological co ...

Icing is one of the most significant hazards to aircraft. A sizing supercooled liquid water content (SSLWC) sonde is being developed to meet a directly related need for in-situ measurements of both total supercooled liquid water content and droplet size distribution. This data will support the development of remote sensing instrumentation to detect icing conditions, support aircraft certificatio ...

The goal of this effort is to develop a compact, rugged, electrically efficient, tunable semiconductor laser for the purpose of injection seeding Nd:YAG lasers in NASA lidar systems for remote sensing and atmospheric profiling. A highly stable low power seed laser plays a crucial role in these systems by keeping the high power, Q-switched, Nd:YAG laser at a fixed wavelength and single mode. In add ...

This NASA Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop a technique to greatly improve the direct coupling of a diode laser to an optical waveguide with embedded Bragg grating using no intermediate lenses. The key innovation proposed for this SBIR effort is a method for generating adiabatic tapers at the input end of optical waveguides in potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP). This ...