Award Data

Distributed Spacecraft Missions (DSM) architectures provide unique scientific and programmatic benefits including multipoint in-situ measurements, multi-angle viewpoints, and improved understanding of the connections between separately measured phenomena and their time variations. However, these missions impose significant operational demands on ground tracking resources and mission operators alik ...

Luna will team with Dr. John Bowers of UCSB to continue development of an Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry (OFDR) system-on-chip using heterogeneous silicon photonics to enable a minimal weight structural health monitoring system. This system-on-chip will be the building block for distributed sensing interrogation systems that are the size of a deck of playing cards. This lightweight, rugged ...

Modern Model-Based Enterprise / Engineering (MBE) systems rely on freeform surfaces built as complex combinations of geometric primitives to define engineered objects. Unfortunately, the intersection of freeform surfaces in MBE applications results in highly approximated solutions, degrading models that cost billions annually by US industry to fix. Current technology limits the abilities of users ...

We will develop a series of object manipulation primitives to pick up and assemble standard mechanical parts such as screws, gears and pulleys that can be configured without any programming skills. Building up on a smart robotic gripper, 3D perception and machine learning algorithms, we will design a graphical user interface for the Universal Robot E-Series that allows an user to label arbitrary 3 ...

In this Phase I SBIR proposal, SandBox Semiconductor™ proposes to develop an Advanced Manufacturing and Material Measurements software tool called Weave ™ for accelerating and automating SEM image analysis for the semiconductor industry. During the development of a new manufacturing process line for a semiconductor device, tens of thousands of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images are take ...

Conventional characterization and test methods are increasingly ineffective when applied to structures less than 100 nanometers, causing challenges across R&D, process control and failure analysis. An increasing number of subtle defects become prominent drivers of failure as device size and operating margins decrease, e.g., processing anomalies in thin gate oxides, substrate problems related to do ...

This project will develop a new scientific instrument optimized for the advanced characterization of near-infrared fluorescent nanoparticles that can exist as left- or right-handed structures (enantiomers). Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are the leading current example of such nanomaterials. Applied NanoFluorescence, LLC (ANF) proposes a novel multi-mode chiroptical spectrometer that can ...

Through the proposed NASA STTR, NanoSonic and Virginia Tech will design and empirically optimize an innovative, commercially scalable additive manufacturing process integrating reactively deposited HybridSil polyimide nanocomposites for next-generation Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) employed on human rated spacecraft. NanoSonicrsquo;s material technology and Virginia Techrsquo;s additive manufac ...

We propose the development of a user-friendly software tool for estimating the electric field distributions within spacecraft enclosures based on the Power Balance (PwB) method and enhanced by a database of experimentally determined Absorption Cross-Sections (ACS) of common equipment, components and cables.The software will be built around an already developed PwB solver that determines the statis ...

Plasma Controls, LLC (SBC) and Colorado State University (RI) will mature an energy and species plasma diagnostic for use with plasma thrusters. The combined Energy and Velocity Analyzer for Distributions of Electric Rockets, or the lsquo;E-VADERrsquo;, is needed especially for characterizing the plasma plume of Hall thrusters, where researchers desire to know ion energies and charged species frac ...