Award Data

The PowerCube is a 1U CubeSat module that provides integrated propulsion, power, and precision pointing to enable the low-cost CubeSat platform to be used to conduct high-performance missions. The PowerCube concept integrates three innovative component technologies to provide these capabilities: First, a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) water-electrolysis fuel cell supplies gH2/gO2 to a simple pres ...

Space missions are immensely costly endeavor – fault free function of the hardware and software used therein are highly critical to mission success. Being highly complex, manual intervention in operation, troubleshooting, and health management related areas are labor intensive and time consuming. On top of that with time the complexities of the systems are increasing, and the performance and avai ...

Optoelectronic integrated circuits offer radiation-hard solutions for satellite systems with much improved SWPB (size, weight, power and bandwidth). The phased array for sensing and data transfer is one system that optoelectronics can impact in the near term. It is known that optical delay could enable optimum beam steering electronic scanning . Lidar is another sensing system using optical beams ...

Cornerstone Research Group Inc. (CRG) proposes to continue the efforts from the 2010 NASA SBIR Phase I topic X5.03, "No-Oven, No-Autoclave (NONA) Composite Processing." NONA offers NASA the ability to manufacture composites without an oven or autoclave, which will significantly decrease manufacturing costs. Large, single-piece composite structures for NASA Heavy Lift Launch Vehicles are currently ...

Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) water electrolyzers have undergone continuous development for the generation of oxygen and hydrogen for commercial, military and space applications since the 1970's. Unfortunately, conventional technology developed over this time period has required a complex balance of plant that adds to the overall weight of the system package. Research in the past two decades resu ...

Teraphysics Corporation completed the Phase I objectives for the electrical design of a 94 GHz, 26 W TWT with 53% overall efficiency, including the helical circuit with efficiency enhancing taper, input/output couplers, electron gun, magnetic circuit and multistage depressed collector. The device includes a novel, microfabricated, helical circuit with electron beam propagating above the helix rat ...

Using small aperture telescopes for detecting exoplanets could have a significant impact on astronomy and other imaging and space communication systems. In this new generation of smaller, lighter and more affordable coronagraph systems, the starlight is rejected with the aid of phase-based transparent masks capable of transmitting planetary light at small angular separation from the star. These so ...

Hydrogen is an essential resource for space missions. NASA has a need for equipment to generate, handle and store hydrogen. In terms of handling hydrogen, conventional rotating mechanical pumps and compressors require extensive modification and have limited reliability. Electrochemical pumping and compression of hydrogen occurs without any moving parts and is highly reliable and efficient. Sustain ...

Interdisciplinary Consulting Corporation proposes a sensor that offers the unique capability to make non-intrusive, direct, simultaneous mean and fluctuating shear stress measurement for subsonic and transonic test applications. Currently a standard for shear stress measurement tool does not exist. A precise silicon micromachined, differential capacitive, instrumentation grade sensor will facili ...

RNET has demonstrated the feasibility of developing an innovative radiation hardened (RH) and ultra low power (ULP) field programmable gate array (FPGA), called the RH/ULP FPGA. The design utilizes an advanced SOI process technology. It is the vision of RNET to develop a family of radiation hardened FPGA products with a variety of features including programmable logic, configurable analog functi ...