Award Data

Friction stir welding (FSW) has a distinct advantage over these other traditional fusion welding techniques as it involves no melting and solidification of weld plate. In addition, the economic advantage of using FSW has been established for welding of low melting point, Al and Mg alloys. However, tool material development has been the major limitation for the application of friction stir welding ...

Protection against the buildup of CO2 in spacecraft is of crucial importance to astronaut health. Currently, several methods are used to remove CO2 from spacecraft including amine scrubbers, lithium hydroxide canisters, and adsorbent-based carbon dioxide removal assemblies (CDRAs). Each scrubbing method has individual benefits and drawbacks: amine scrubbers have no particulate release but require ...

Current state of the art inertial measurement units (IMUs) co-locate a set of accelerometers and gyroscopes into a single package. CU Aerospace (CUA), in partnership with the University of Illinois, propose to develop a scalable and distributed IMU for space robotics and CubeSat applications. The user can choose to include an arbitrary number of inertial sensors beyond the minimal number of sensor ...

We propose the development of a very high specific power integrated electric turbofan directly driven with a high frequency, air-core synchronous motor. If the target specific power is achieved, this technology could increase the viability of turbo-electric airplanes for commercial air transport, leading to significantly lower carbon emissions and energy use in aviation. The key innovation is the ...

The fast-light effect in a cavity, in the active or passive mode, has emerged as an important mechanism for enhancing the sensitivity of many devices. Recently, we have been investigating the development of gyroscopes and accelerometers using the active mode, in which the cavity is a Fast-Light Ring Laser (FLRL). Specifically, we have demonstrated, on a table-top, a pair of counter-propagating F ...

Akadio proposes to develop H5 Hermes, an enhancement to HDF5 to enable high efficiency I/O performance for HDF5 applications that perform many related reads and writes across large data structures. Such I/O operations are often a serious bottleneck for large scale simulations, resulting in I/O bottlenecks that significantly degrade overall performance.There are existing HDF5-based solutions simila ...

We propose to use advanced algorithms for compressive sensing (CS) using inpainting which utilize machine learning to improve the capability of existing or novel hyperspectral imaging (HSI) systems. These approaches will allow for an order of magnitude improvement in the frame acquisition speed of existing detectors at a high compression ratio with no loss of resolution, while at the same time per ...

As the world leader in the production of epitaxial lift-off (ELO) inverted metamorphic (IMM) solar cells, MicroLink Devices proposes to develop large-area ELO-IMM solar cell designed specifically for low intensity, low temperature (LILT) space applications. These solar cells will achieve 45% power conversion efficiency (at –125°C and 5.2 AU) with high production yields, enabling substantial sol ...

This Phase I program addresses the NASA needs for Technical Area TA12 which provides technologies supporting advanced manufacturing, structures, and materials. In this program, ultrasonic thermometry methods will be adapted to enable real time, temperature measurements during a friction stir weld, FSW. While FSW it has been successfully used at NASA-MSFC in the robust joining of thinner panels o ...

Micrometeor and Orbital Debris (MMOD) impacts on spacecraft and large space structures are a significant hazard that can compromise mission success and threaten to endanger the lives of crew. Acoustic emission (AE) signals and impact shock generated by MMOD impacts can be detected by an array of inexpensive, replaceable, wireless surface sensor units affixed to the external surfaces of the spacecr ...