Award Data

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

The proposed Wireless, passive, SAW sensor system operates in a multi-sensor environment with a range in excess of 45 feet. This proposed system offers unique features in two (2) important areas. The first is in the development of a new sensor type, a strain gauge that is based on OFC techniques and implemented with the low loss characteristics of SAW Unidirectional transducers. The second is in t ...

High-temperature passive wireless surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors are highly desirable for improving safety and efficiency in aviation and space vehicles. This proposal addresses the growth and processing of a new class of high temperature material into acceptable SAW wafers, the production of SAW temperature sensors, and the integration of the SAW and thin film antenna (SAWtenna). The proje ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

A Probabilistic Fatigue Damage Assessment Network (PFDAN) toolkit for Abaqus will be developed for probabilistic life management of a laminated composite structure with both microcracking induced stiffness degradation and cyclic loading induced delamination crack growth without remeshing. It is based on a high fidelity Fatigue Damage Assessment Network (FDAN) which includes 1) a coupled continuum ...