List

Through previous grant awards from IES, researchers developed Graspable Math, a tablet-based intervention where middle and high school students create and manipulate complex expressions for basic operations as well as equations and equations systems and inequalities. In this project, the team will develop a prototype of Graspable Math Activities, an app with novel kinds of algebra practice and ass ...

Sustainable Bioproducts (SB) proposes to develop an encapsulated biofilm-biomat reactor that will efficiently convert mission relevant feedstocks to usable products under zero gravity conditions. The bioreactor will be based on SB’s proprietary fermentation platform for converting a wide variety of waste streams into a multitude of usable products. SB’s bioreactor platform is simple, d ...

This SBIR Phase I effort will be devoted to exploring possible improvements for the NASA ARCSTONE instrument. One possible improvement will be to utilize total internal reflection optics for the fore-optics of the system. Possible benefits include reduced polarization and smaller size. A second possible improvement will be to use an optical design that requires only one focal plane array for the e ...

Radiative transfer properties of clouds play an important role in the energy balance of the Earth.  Numerous NASA programs and experiments are directed to measuring these effects.  In-situ measurements are critical for supporting satellite-borne instruments.  While research aircraft carry the best in-situ instruments, the aircraft and instruments are too expensive to provide suffici ...

The overall goal of the SBIR effort is to develop a frequency-agile, stand-alone, space-hardened diode-based seed laser with options for locking and frequency agility to compensate for doppler shift during orbit. This US-manufactured platform will be applicable for seeding next generation Nd:YAG lasers currently being developed for high-priority-designated aerosol missions (single- and multi-chann ...

The nondestructivecharacterization of advanced composites, such ascarbon-fiber reinforced polymers (cfrp), by electromagnetic means iswell established [6]-[24].  What isneeded to advance the state of the art are sophisticated inversionalgorithms that allow layup and impact damage to be determined inlocalized regions, which means that the more traditional methods ofmodel-based inverse methods ...

According to the decadal report titled, Life and Physical Sciences Research for a New Era of Space Exploration, a Report, "...the AHB Panel would be remiss if it did not strongly recommend an animal centrifuge capable of accommodating rats/mice at variable gravity levels." Furthermore, the panel stated, “...research on animal models will be constrained without the ability to manipu ...

The overall goal of this NASA effort is to develop and deliver efficient, single-pass quantum optical waveguide sources generating high purity hyper-entangled photon pairs for use in high-rate long-distance links.  The new devices will produce hyper-entangled photon pairs with high efficiency, pure spectral properties, and low attenuation, providing the key technology required for deployment ...

Deployable aerodynamic decelerators are an enabling technology for missions to planets and moons with atmospheres as well as for returning payloads to Earth.  These decelerators require a gas source for inflation, and the objective is to provide an improvement over existing pressurized gas inflation systems. A hydrogen gas generator suitable for the inflation of Hypersonic Aerodynamic In ...

PCKA is partnering with researchers at Purdue University to develop an Autonomous Power Controller (APC) for mission-critical microgrids to supply electric power in a highly autonomous and secure manner to accomplish mission objectives. The APC consists of a centralized controller connected to an array of local component controllers. The centralized controller will be capable of optimal generation ...