Award Data

Suppression of noise from aircraft is a vital NASA goal, especially important for the vision of Urban Air Mobility. Small urban aircraft may utilize Distributed Electric Propulsion along with advanced structural and electric motor/storage technologies to achieve the necessary flight capability. However, these aircraft utilize propellers or fans to achieve the necessary thrust, with attendant commu ...

Emergent Space Technologies (Emergent) proposes to develop ROBOT, the Rules Oriented Blockchain Operations Transactor. ROBOT extends Blockchain technology to the space domain, enabling essential autonomy for distributed spacecraft resource scheduling and tasking. In the ground segment of federated systems, where NASA does not control all resources, ROBOT enables system users to securely and transp ...

Addressing the needs of Mars exploration missions in the NASArsquo;s strategic plan will require robust and effective autonomous collaborative operations between heterogeneous assets. These ldquo;swarmsrdquo; may consisting of ground rovers, atmospheric craft and Mars-orbiting satellites. To maximize the satisfaction of overall mission objectives, be tolerant of faults/anomalies, and minimize the ...

Technology currently used for terrestrial navigation is extremely limited in the challenging environments on icy moons and ocean worlds such as Europa. Autonomous platforms used to collect data from beneath these ice and ocean surfaces cannot depend on access to satellite or any other electromagnetic communication. Autonomous systems in these environments are required to perform highly-complex tas ...

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP) research is part of NASA effort to improve aircraft fuel efficiency, emissions, and noise levels. New secondary battery chemistries are required to meet the 500 ndash; 700 Wh/kg cell level specific energy needs of UAM, all-electric helicopters and regional passenger aircraft. The cycle life, currently at asymp; 1500 ndash; 3000 cycles, also needs substantial i ...

Cornerstone Research Group Inc. (CRG) proposes to advance the state-of-the-art in space vehicle Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) through in-situ application and curing of a proprietary new resin technology called MG Resin, a family of thermoset formulations. The resins are being explored with DARPA, MDA, NASA, and the Army for a range of applications including C/C hot structures, TPS, syntactic in ...

Rotating Detonation Engine (RDE) design is challenging due to the lack of in-depth understanding of many key mixing and combustion processes. The RDE flow field is a nonuniform mixture of fuel and oxidizer concentrations with strong injector effects, large turbulence effects, multiple shockwaves, and shear layers. These inhomogeneities can lead to significant combustion inefficiencies which have a ...

This program will develop a communication-less solution to decentralized control and task coordination for multi-agent systems (MAS). Reducing the operational burden of MAS swarms on human operators will greatly improve the capability of spacecraft constellations and distant planetary explorations. The proposed solution would guide the MAS towards a cost minimized set of actions by performing grad ...

Plasma Controls, LLC (SBC) and Colorado State University (RI) will mature an energy and species plasma diagnostic for use with plasma thrusters. The combined Energy and Velocity Analyzer for Distributions of Electric Rockets, or the lsquo;E-VADERrsquo;, is needed especially for characterizing the plasma plume of Hall thrusters, where researchers desire to know ion energies and charged species frac ...

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) project will be to improve the safety testing of new drugs for approval by the FDA. By decreasing the time and costs associated with safety testing, the product will make all classes of new drugs safer, less expensive and available to patients sooner. All new drugs must demonstrate that they are safe. One com ...