Award Data

Advanced turbomachinery components play a critical role in launch vehicle and spacecraft liquid rocket propulsion systems. To achieve desired efficiencies, extremely tight tolerances are often imposed between inducer blades and shrouds or other system components which sets up strong interactions that influence both the aerodynamics and the structural performance of blades and vanes. These transien ...

Despite the rapid commercialization of additive manufacturing technology such as selective laser melting, SLM, there are gaps in models for material microstructure and property prediction that slow qualification and certification. Improvements in coupling microstructure prediction models to local process conditions, validation, and control of material microstructure are required to mature the stat ...

Advances in structured heterogeneity together with nanomaterials tailoring has made it possible to create thermoelectrics using high temperature, polymer composites. While such thermoelectrics do not have the capability to approach the efficiency of top performing ceramic modules such as BiTe, they do provide two unique aspects of use in energy scavenging: the ability to cover large areas easily, ...

The liberation of particles induced by rocket plume flow from spacecraft landing on unprepared regolith of the Moon, Mars, and other destinations poses high mission risks for robotic and human exploration activities. This process occurs in a combination of "extreme environments" that combine low gravity, little or no atmosphere, with rocket exhaust gas flow that is supersonic and partially rarefie ...

With the capacity and performance of FPGAs suitable for space borne applications continuously increasing, the design of FPGAs is becoming increasingly complex involving trading off or simultaneous optimization of space, speed, and power. RNET and ANL are proposing to develop software infrastructure that facilitates automatic performance tuning of FPGAs in terms of speed, power, and size. We introd ...

Boulder Nonlinear Systems (BNS) and University of Dayton (UD) will team on development of a non-mechanical beam steering (NMBS) subsystem for Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) sensors. BNS will improve their current polarization grating (PG) technology which is capable of switching well over the +- 25 degree requirement called for in the solicitation. Advances to the PG technology specific to the ...

While much attention is necessarily focused on the evaluation and certification of the materials and processes involved in adhesive bonding, development is still needed in decreasing the cost, time, and complexity of the current repair concepts. A material and processing system is needed that allows the design, infusion, and cure of composite repairs without the current roadblocks imposed by ovens ...

Supporting aerospace mission readiness, a system is needed that allows for composite repairs without the current roadblocks imposed by ovens, autoclaves, and expensive tooling. Cornerstone Research Group (CRG), its subsidiary NONA Composites, and the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) presents NASA with the opportunity to obtain a rapid and robust method for on-site composite structura ...

Among the numerous technological advances sought in order to facilitate human space travel, solutions and innovations are needed for techniques that supports the mass- and energy-efficient maintenance of closed air, water, and waste systems in spacecraft habitats that operate within microgravity. As missions are foreseen to be extended with limited earth resupply available there is need to develop ...

Computational tools that accurately predict the performance of electric propulsion devices are highly desirable by NASA and the broader electric propulsion community. Large investments in running the long duration test programs (> 20 kHrs) at NASA GRC can be reduced with computer models and allow more focus on exploring the NEXT ion thruster design for future space missions. The current state of e ...