Award Data

Our innovation is a low cost, sensitive, quantitative biosensor that can detect many biomarkers on the same chip. Our sensor consists of vertically aligned silicon nanowires. The silicon nanowires’ high surface area to volume ratio makes them sensitive to the environment around them and can thus lead to high sensitivity detection. Each of the nanowires can be functionalized to be sensitive to ei ...

Leveraging their prior experience working with automated fiber placement (AFP) of thin-ply composite materials, NextGen Materials & Processing LLC and the University of Massachusetts Lowell will utilize a Design of Experiments approach, combined with analytical modeling, to identify the critical material, slitting, spooling, and AFP parameters that influence the repeatable, high quality laydown of ...

All rocket missions benefit from having lower structural mass and higher specific impulse, both of which contribute to larger payload fractions and therefore lower mission cost. High temperature materials such as ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are an avenue to lower engine mass because of the low density and high specific strength of the material. They also have a high maximum temperature and so ...

Through this SBIR effort, NASA is looking for innovative technology to bolster its flight research capabilities. Particularly, NASA seeks the development of innovative measurement and data acquisition approaches. Mide through a past RIF BAA for Navair, developed a stand-alone high performance data logger for vibration/acceleration, pressure, and temperature. The device, dubbed the Slamstick X, w ...

Future hybrid aircraft, such as NASA’s N3-X plan, will require all-superconducting electric motors and generators in order to achieve power density in excess of 10 kW/kg. Unlike the DC rotor, the stator must operate in AC mode, for example, from 0-0.5 T at 120 Hz, making it impossible to use high temperature superconducting (HTS) tapes due to their high losses in transient fields, requiring in ...

We believe a robust approach to integrated system health management (ISHM) design is the application of redundancy. Redundancy is often thought of in terms of hardware; however, functional, analytic, and information redundancy strategies should also be considered. Modeling sensor information is invaluable for diagnostics and critical path analysis. A total system approach is an efficient means of ...

NASA's Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or EMU, is a personal mini-spacecraft that comprises the space suit assembly and life support systems. The current EMU has a manually operated extravehicular visor assembly (EVVA) that provides protection from micrometeoroids and from solar ultraviolet and infrared radiation. For the integration of EVVA with NASA’s next generation space suits helmet bubbl ...

In several technologies within NASA’s In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) systems, such as fuel cell, water electrolysis and gas/water separations etc., polymeric membranes, especially proton exchange membranes (PEM), play an important role. These membranes are generally hygroscopic, subject to swelling in the presence of humidity or water. When restrained membranes undergo a hydration/dehydrati ...

During dynamic events such as launch, ascent abort, atmospheric reentry, descent, and landing, crewmembers will experience significant inertial and vibrational loading. To this date, data has not been collected in flight. There is particular interest in the chest, neck, and head region, which are exceptionally sensitive areas. Quantifying the loading on the crewmembers will allow refined simula ...

In this Phase 1 SBIR proposal, Vuronyx Technologies will design an energy efficient, low footprint water recovery system for space applications. The proposed system will integrate two emerging water purification approaches - a capacitive deionization (CDI) system to remove ions, and an Electrochemical Advanced Oxidation Process (EAOP) to remove organic contaminants and microbes. The proposed work ...