Award Data

The Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) missile is the weapon component of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system that consists of a rocket booster and kinetic kill vehicle. Recently, MDA has sought technologies to improve the performance of the booster vehicle (BV). To date, studies have shown that reductions in weight have a direct impact on overall effectiveness. The current proposal aims t ...

DfR Solutions and the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) have formed a team of experts in solder joint reliability and gold embrittlement to perform a series of experiments that will provide the data necessary to create mechanistic reliability models. Critical to any application of these models and of interpreting experimental results is the ability to determine solder joint gold contaminatio ...

Thermally induced fatigue and residual stress introduced during fabrication are sources of failure in microelectronics, which raises reliability concerns for MDA and its system integrators. CFDRC has teamed with experts in the reliability of microelectronics packaging to develop a physics based modeling and testing protocol to correlate material properties and thermal loading conditions to stress ...

The Department of Defense uses large-scale high-resolution federated simulations to propagate rocket vehicle trajectories. Runge-Kutta methods have served as a de-facto standard while conducting such simulations. However, there are several challenges while using Runge-Kutta methods for this task. Firstly, there should be exact time-step matching between federates, otherwise the states have to be i ...

Improving capabilities of telemetry systems for next generation e.g. (MOKV) missile defense launch vehicles, kill vehicles, and test/target vehicles subsystems can transform operational testing of such systems and has the potential to increase capabilities of systems that rely on radio communications. As these systems, and their test scenarios become get more complex they will require unprecedente ...

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) proposes to design, develop, and demonstrate a portable, non-invasive, real-time sensor to assess the chemical and physical health of solid rocket motors as a function of age without affecting the motors integrity nor having direct contact with the propellant. In Phase II, a sensor to monitor specific gas species that are markers of the chemical and mechanical aging pr ...

Missile defense faces the challenges of rapidly maturing and evolving complex threats, possessing capabilities which require the use of all available resources to successfully detect, track and identify the lethal objects. Future performance will rely on multiple sensors such as ground and sea based radars and electro-optical and infrared sensors for target recognition. It is crucial to develop a ...

An advanced hit detection technology is needed for MDA that can report impacts at hyper-velocities and at multiple hit locations. We present a technology with a high level of performance that leverages decades of hit technology experience and utilizes existing technologies developed under previous efforts. Our technology offers a low latency non-interpolated direct indicator of multiple hit locati ...

The Iris Technology team which also include Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems (NGAS) and the University of Wisconsin, is attacking the problem of high-efficiency, low-volume, space-qualified cryocooler systems.The team has a firm starting point by leveraging the Northrop Grumman Microcryocooler and the Iris Technology mLCCE (Miniature Low Cost Control Electronics).TMU enhancement will start with ...

West Coast Solutions (WCS), in collaboration with the Georgia Institute of Technology and Creare LLC, proposes an adaptation of our SmallSat Stirling Cryocooler (SSC) technology in response to STTR Topic MDA17-T003: High-Efficiency, Low-Volume, Space-Qualified Cryogenic-Coolers. In Phase 1 we will scale up a design currently in development for NASA to meet the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) topic re ...