Award Data

Heat shield technology is a critical component for both re-entry and hypersonic vehicles. The traditional manufacturing approach for designing heat shields consists of joining TPS tiles together with an adhesive that fills any gaps between them. This approach has significant challenges, including the reduction in thermal-mechanical performance as compared to that of acreage woven material. Nhung's ...

Accurately predicting Remaining Useful Life (RUL) provides significant benefits—it increases safety and reduces financial and labor resource requirements. Relying on just one methodology for RUL prediction is unsuitable because certain methods of prediction perform better for certain use cases and conditions. Approaches must be combined to maximize accuracy. Encoding these hybrid methods is c ...

Mesa Photonics proposes to develop an Airborne Multi-Gas Sensor (AMUGS) based upon two-tone, frequency modulation spectroscopy (TT-FMS). Mesa Photonics has developed a fiber-coupled implementation of TT-FMS that leverages telecommunications lasers as sources and WiFi electronics for signal processing. With this approach, sensitive trace gas detection in a robust, compact and low-power package has ...

Traditional hydraulic actuation and control surface layout both limit span wise control of lift distribution, and require large volume within wing cross-section, ultimately reducing efficiency. Mounting and support structures for traditional actuators, also necessitate drag-inducing protrusions in otherwise ideally smooth airfoils. Consequently, hydraulic systems are heavy and energy intensive as ...

New measurement technologies are required to support science campaigns to better quantify rapid changes in the Earth atmosphere system. A key factor in this heightened focus on risk and uncertainty is the growing recognition that the climate is changing far more rapidly than was thought just five years ago. Aurora Flight Sciences and Harvard University propose to miniaturize the Harvard Integrated ...

SSCI, in collaboration with University of Texas, Austin (UTA), proposes to develop, integrate, implement and test a novel framework for the design and performance evaluation of Guidance, Naviagation & Control algorithms for spacecraft Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking (AR\&D). The framework is referred to as the GUARD (GUidance, Navigation and Control for AR\&D), and will include a suite of advanc ...

NASA and Boeing Phantom Works have been working on the Elastically Shaped Future Vehicle Concept (ESFVC) and have shown that aircraft with elastically shaped wings have great potential to save fuel by minimizing drag. Main feature of the ESFVC is that it uses Variable Camber Continuous Trailing Edge Flap (VCC-TEF) flight control surfaces to bend & twist the wing to a "drooped wing" configuration ...

Through the proposed NASA SBIR program, NanoSonic will optimize its HybridSil® derived yttrium silicates to serve as next-generation reinforcement for carbon and ceramic felt ablative TPS materials. This effort will leverage NanoSonic's rapidly evolving polymer derived ceramic technology, which has demonstrated thermomechanical durability in excess of 1900 oC, thermal conductivity as low as 30 mW ...

This program addresses the need for interfacial and in-depth temperature monitoring of thermal protection systems (TPS). Novel, linear drive, eddy current methods are proposed that incorporate innovative sensor array constructs, physics-based models, and multivariate inverse methods to nondestructively assess temperatures for carbon-based TPS materials such as felts and PICA. The sensors can be ...

Prime Photonics proposes design and development of a surface acoustic wave (SAW) based temperature gradient sensor for instrumentation of thermal protection systems (TPS). This device will utilize a passive, wireless interrogation approach to produce a robust measurement platform compatible with high temperature environments.