Award Data

Solar arrays that have very high specific power (W/kg) and compact stowed volume (W/m3), while still providing shielding to the solar cell, are an enabling technology for Deep Space CubeSat missions. Current CubeSat and small satellite solar arrays employ either fixed panels mounted directly to the Satellite side-wall(s) or small hinged rigid panels. These arrays generate very low power (4-20W) ...

The ability to "live off of the land" via in-situ resource utilization has long been recognized as a key capability for enabling the affordable development of space. While most of the focus has been on the production of bulk quantities of rocket propellants such as Liquid Methane, Liquid Hydrogen, and Liquid Oxygen from extraterrestrial water and carbon dioxide sources, there has recently been an ...

Special Aerospace Services (SAS) has detailed knowledge and experience in remote and autonomous launch sites, inclusive of foreign launch sites. SAS will provide NASA with an analysis of the historic and current trending of the launch vehicle to ground and launch vehicle to payload interfaces. SAS will accomplish this by leveraging its extensive knowledge of domestic and foreign launch vehicles ...

Three of the key abilities needed for making future NASA and commercial in-space transportation systems more affordable and capable are: a) the ability to ?live off of the land? via in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), b) the ability to reuse in-space transportation hardware, and c) the ability to leverage continuing advancements in lower-cost earth-to-orbit transportation. All of these abilities ...

With plans to transition to the Rapid Cycle Amine system for CO2 control in the Portable Life Support System used for extra vehicular activities (EVA), NASA has a need to improve the method for controlling trace contaminants, specifically ammonia (NH3) and formaldehyde (CH2O), which have the potential to exceed space craft maximum allowable concentrations (SMAC) by the end of the EVA. A very sim ...

In response to NASA's need for compact, low-cost deployable solar sail booms for CubeSats, Roccor proposes to develop a high performance composite TRAC (TRAC HP) Boom system. The proposed design will advance TRAC technology through: 1) the use of thin-ply composite laminates that are capable of higher packaging strains, 2) the use of high modulus carbon fibers to increase specific modulus of the ...

The Solar Cube heliogyro is a CubeSat propulsion system that utilizes reflected solar pressure as its only means of propulsion and attitude control. It has the appearance of a Dutch windmill and employs sail control akin to a helicopter. Four solar reflecting blades made of ultrathin polyimide attach to a central bus. During operation, centripetal tension and chord-wise battens provide stiffness ...

TDA Research is proposing to chemically modify the polymer backbone of polymers known to have char yields upwards of 70% at 800+ ⁰C (under inert gas) in order to make the polymers flexible, and possibly elastomeric at or near room temperature. Flexibility is a result of easy rotation around the bonds within a polymer backbone, maintained only in the presence of low crosslink density. Conversely, ...

The growing use in deep space of CubeSats is driving the need for small, flexible, full-featured telecom hardware like the Iris radio. The current Iris software is rudimentary compared the NASA Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS). The software on each slice uses a simple 333 kHz loop as a basic scheduler to invoke small C elements. Changes can only be made before the radio is installed in ...

Aqwest proposes to develop a novel, compact and rugged high-peak power blue laser in the 0.45-0.49 m range. The innovative blue laser is based on a frequency-quadrupling of 1.9-μm laser output from ceramic Tm:Lu2O3, a novel high-performance solid-state laser (SSL) material that is new becoming commercially available. The project will adapt our novel and highly successful edge-pumped disk laser ...