Award Data

In situ planetary instruments face challenges that greatly exceed even the challenges of developing in-space Earth-orbiting instruments. Because of restricted payload masses for these ambitious missions, planetary in situ instruments must be very small (a few kg, at most), consume low power (20W or less), take up low volume (a few liters, at most), and be highly automated from instrument turn-on t ...

We propose to combine the two most powerful cathode technologies into one hollow cathode assembly for use in ion and Hall-effect thrusters. Together, these technologies will boost ion thruster performance and life beyond current art. Reservoir cathodes have demonstrated, in microwave tube environments, lifetimes beyond 100,000 hours with no drop in output. Scandate impregnated cathodes have dem ...

A multi-channel FPGA-based time-to-digital converter (TDC) is needed to process the output from single-photon focal plane arrays used in lasercom. Leveraging an existing 64-channel design shown capable of better than 30 ps. time resolution and 256 channels with 120-ps time resolution, scalable 512-channel (threshold) and 1024-channel (objective) TDCs with optional multicore image processor will be ...

To satisfy NASA deep-space communications needs, a readout integrated circuit (ROIC) optimized for single-photon counting (SPC) freespace optical communications will be developed, which is optimized for acquisition, tracking, ranging, and reception of the 1064 nm – 1570 nm optical radiation used for freespace optical links. The ROIC will allow simultaneous recovery of photon time of arrival a ...

A highly sensitive 640 x 480-element flash LADAR camera will be developed that is capable of 100-Hz rates with better than 5-cm range precision. The design is based on proven readout integrated circuit (ROIC) designs, shown to have very low noise, high frame rates, and superior range resolution, and proven high gain, low noise avalanche photodiode (APD) array technology, sensitive in the 1.0- to 1 ...

Interest is rapidly growing in eye-safe solid-state lasers for range finding, LIDAR, infrared countermeasures, medicine, dentistry, and others. To address the need for compact, high efficiency lasers operating in this important spectral band, an ultra-compact turnkey, narrow-band, high-mode-quality, high-pulse-energy, and high-pulse-repetition-frequency (PRF), diode-pumped solid-state (DPSS) pulse ...

We propose to form a network and a set of tools that will create a shared situation awareness with Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Ground Control Stations (GCSs) and airline dispatchers at Airline Operations Centers (AOCs). Our solution is motivated by the Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) community in commercial aviation, where the CDMnet was created back in 1997 to facilitate collaboration be ...

Numerical simulations of chemical kinetics are a critical component of aerospace research, Earth systems research, and energy research. These simulations enable a better understanding of the evolution of chemical species over time in domains as diverse as climate and weather prediction, combustion simulation, and air quality prediction. The time-to-solution in these simulations can be improved by ...

TBD

The "piston errors" and aberrations of the mirror segments used in large telescopes, are typically measured with on-board optical instruments, usually a dispersed Hartman sensor (DHS) and/or dispersed fringe sensor (DFS). Calibrating and testing of the wavefront sensors are typically performed using custom-built fused silica phase plate arrays. The manufacture and assembly of each custom phase pla ...