Award Data

The lunar surface is to a large extent covered with a dust layer several meters thick. Known as lunar regolith, it poses a hazard in the form of dust clouds being generated by all forms of gas expansions in the high vacuum environment of the lunar surface. This is especially pronounced during spacecraft operations. Instruments placed on the moon by the Apollo mission showed marked degradation d ...

Over the next few decades, NASA plans to launch a number of planetary probes to and return the samples to Earth for detailed investigation. Due to the rapid expanse of space exploration, a need has been identified for the proper handling of extraterrestrial samples. Not only must the sample return system maintain the physical integrity of the sample in sometimes rigorous conditions (e.g., rover ...

The characterization of aircraft particulate matter (PM) emissions has benefited greatly by the Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (AMS) by providing size resolved compositional information. AMS data have been critical to much of our understanding of aircraft PM emissions, but it has limited utility in probing the smallest (

Laser optical communications offer the potential to dramatically increase the link bandwidth and decrease the emitter power in long-range space communications. Newest system designs require photon-counting arrays operated at high detection efficiency, tens of picoseconds temporal resolution, and capability to handle high detection rates at the wavelength of the laser beam. We propose to develop a ...

This Phase I program proposes to synthesize novel nanoengineered ultra low out gassing elastomers and formulate high temperature capable flexible thermal control coatings as well as adhesives based on the proposed chemistries that are stable in various space environments. We have envisioned nano-engineered clusters and the innovative synthesis of the poly carborane-polysiloxanes, to surpass the pe ...

The limitations of current airspace management have necessitated the planning and development of the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). NextGen seeks to change the fundamental structure of airspace management to increase the safety and efficiency of flight operations. This effort will require the introduction of advanced flight deck technologies capable of meeting NextGen require ...

The hundreds of stream cores in the latest graphics processors (GPUs), and the possibility to execute non-graphics computations on them, open unprecedented levels of parallelism at a very low cost. We will investigate ways to efficiently exploit this parallelism in order to accelerate the execution of a Boolean Satisfiability (SAT) solver. SAT has a wide range of applications, including formal ver ...

Advanced high-temperature sensor technology and bonding methods are of great interests in designing and developing advanced future aircraft. Current state-of-the-art high temperature strain sensors are made of wires or thin film deposited by PVD on shims and then welded or glued onto strainable member, which is suffering the disadvantages such as creep, relaxation hysteresis and a limited range of ...

A fiber-based fixed-array laser transmitter can be combined with a fiber-arrayed detector to create the next-generation NASA array LIDAR systems. High speed optical fiber multiplexers allow array LIDAR systems to efficiently share the same laser source. Boston Applied Technologies, Inc. (BATi) propose to develop an electrically switched, OptoCeramicREG based switch/multiplexer for 200micron core m ...

Broadband Photonics Incorporated proposes to develop a patent-pending fiber optic continuous liquid sensor for low-thrust level settled mass gauging with measurement uncertainty