Apr 8 2016

From The Space Library

NASA Reaches Out to Universities for Small Satellite Technology Collaborations

NASA is once again extending an opportunity to teams at colleges and universities with campuses in the U.S. to propose small spacecraft technology projects to be conducted in collaboration with NASA researchers. The Smallsat Technology Partnerships solicitation is being issued by the Small Spacecraft Technology Program, as an appendix to the Space Technology Mission Directorate’s (STMD) NASA Research Announcement (NRA) for 2016.

Small spacecraft, as small as the size of a four-inch cube, represent a growing field of space research in which universities have often led the way. Small spacecraft, or smallsats as they are commonly called, can provide an alternative to larger, more costly spacecraft as the platform of choice for rapid in-flight technology demonstrations and testing, or specialized scientific research and exploration. Using innovative approaches, smallsats can be developed relatively quickly and inexpensively and have opportunities to share a ride to orbit in the company of larger spacecraft.

NASA expects to competitively select about eight projects from among those proposed by this year’s university teams, which can form proposal partnerships with researchers from any of NASA’s ten field centers. Each project award includes up to $100,000 to each university team per year. In addition, NASA will fund the time for one NASA employee to work with each selected team and will provide project funding for one year with the potential to continue for a second year.

The scope of proposed projects could involve laboratory work to advance a particular small spacecraft technology or the development of a new smallsat. NASA will accept proposals in four topic areas:

• Enhanced power generation and storage.
• Cross-linking communications systems.
• Relative navigation for multiple small spacecraft.
• Instruments and sensors for small spacecraft science missions.

This new opportunity will engage undergraduate university students and graduate researchers in advancing technology of value to NASA and the nation while strengthening the next generation high-technology workforce. The universities will benefit from the deep experience that NASA has in space research and technology development, while NASA benefits from fresh ideas and cost-conscious innovation resident at universities.

Thirteen projects were selected for Smallsat Technology Partnerships in 2013, two of which were later selected for NASA-sponsored launches to orbit. A second solicitation was issued in 2015 and the eight selected projects are well underway.

Proposals for the current solicitation are due by May 25, 2016, and will continue what is now intended to be an annual opportunity for university and NASA collaboration.

RELEASE 16-041 NASA Invests in Two-Dimensional Spacecraft, Reprogrammable Microorganisms

NASA has selected 13 proposals through NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC), a program that invests in transformative architectures through the development of pioneering technologies.

Among the selected are: a concept for reprogramming microorganisms that could use the Martian environment to recycle and print electronics; a two-dimensional spacecraft with ultra-thin subsystems that may wrap around space debris to enable de-orbiting; and a method of computational imaging that leverages extrasolar intensity fluctuations to detect “echoes” from planets and other structures orbiting a distant star.

NIAC Phase I awards are valued at approximately $100,000 for nine months, to support initial definition and analysis of their concepts. If these basic feasibility studies are successful, awardees can apply for Phase II awards, valued up to $500,000 for two additional years of concept development.

“The latest NIAC selections include a number of concepts for planetary and robotic exploration,” said Steve Jurczyk, NASA’s associate administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington. “NASA continues to value early stage concept studies for our future missions.”

The 2016 portfolio of Phase I concepts cover a wide range of innovations selected for their potential to revolutionize future aerospace missions. Such breakthroughs hold the promise of accelerating NASA’s progress toward its goals of exploration beyond low-Earth orbit, missions to an asteroid and Mars, and other priority areas in all of NASA’s mission directorates. NIAC partners with forward-thinking scientists, engineers, and citizen inventors from across the nation to help maintain America’s leadership in air and space.

The 2016 Phase I concepts are:

• Light Weight Multifunctional Planetary Probe for Extreme Environment Exploration and Locomotion, Javid Bayandor, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg
• Venus Interior Probe Using In-situ Power and Propulsion (VIP-INSPR), Ratnakumar Bugga, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California
• Project RAMA: Reconstituting Asteroids into Mechanical Automata, Jason Dunn, Made In Space, Inc. in Moffett Field, California
• Molecular Composition Analysis of Distant Targets, Gary Hughes, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
• Brane Craft, Siegfried Janson, The Aerospace Corporation in Los Angeles
• Stellar Echo Imaging of Exoplanets, Chris Mann, Nanohmics, Inc. in Austin, Texas
• Mars Molniya Orbit Atmospheric Resource Mining, Robert Mueller, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida
• Journey to the Center of Icy Moons, Masahiro Ono, JPL
• E-Glider: Active Electrostatic Flight for Airless Body Exploration, Marco Quadrelli, JPL
• Urban bio-mining meets printable electronics: end-to-end at destination biological recycling and reprinting, Lynn Rothschild, NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California
• Automaton Rover for Extreme Environments, Jonathan Sauder, JPL
• Fusion-Enabled Pluto Orbiter and Lander, Stephanie Thomas, Princeton Satellite Systems, Inc. in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey
• NIMPH - Nano Icy Moons Propellant Harvester, Michael VanWoerkom, ExoTerra Resource, LLC of Littleton, Colorado

“The 2016 NIAC Phase I competition was fierce, as usual. All of the final candidates were outstanding, and limiting the choice to what fit in our budget was difficult,” said Jason Derleth, NIAC program executive. “We hope each new study will push boundaries and explore new approaches – that’s what makes NIAC unique.”

RELEASE 16-043 NASA Cargo Headed to Space Station Includes Habitat Prototype, Medical Research

Tucked in the trunk of the latest commercial cargo spacecraft to head for the International Space Station is an expandable structure that has the potential to revolutionize work and life on the space station.

SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft is delivering almost 7,000 pounds of cargo, including the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), to the orbital laboratory following its launch on a Falcon 9 rocket at 4:43 p.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The mission is SpaceX’s eighth cargo delivery through NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services contract. Dragon's cargo will support dozens of the more than 250 science and research investigations taking place on the space station during Expeditions 47 and 48.

“The cargo will allow investigators to use microgravity conditions to test the viability of expandable space habitats, assess the impact of antibodies on muscle wasting, use protein crystal growth to aid the design of new disease-fighting drugs and investigate how microbes could affect the health of the crew and their equipment over a long duration mission,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman.

Dragon will be grappled at 7 a.m. Sunday, April 10, by ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Tim Peake, using the station's Candarm2 robotic arm, with help from NASA astronaut Jeff Williams.

BEAM will arrive in Dragon’s unpressurized trunk and, after about five days, will be removed and attached to the station. Expansion is targeted for the end of May. The module will expand to roughly 10 feet in diameter and 13 feet long. During its two-year test mission, astronauts will enter the module for a few hours several times a year to retrieve sensor data and assess conditions. Expandable habitats are designed to take up less room on a rocket, but provide greater volume for living and working in space once expanded. This first in situ test of the module will allow investigators to gauge how well the habitat protects against solar radiation, space debris and contamination.

Crew members experience significant decreases in bone density and muscle mass during long-duration spaceflight without appropriate nutrition and exercise. One life science investigation on its way to the orbiting laboratory will assess myostatin inhibition as a means of preventing skeletal muscle atrophy and weakness in mice exposed to long-duration spaceflight. Drugs tested on the space station could progress to human clinical trials back on Earth to validate their effectiveness for future space missions.

Dragon also will deliver Microchannel Diffusion, a study of fluids at the nanoscale, or atomic, level. Nanofluidic sensors could measure the air in the space station, or be used to deliver drugs to specific places in the body. The laws that govern flow through nanoscale channels are not well understood, and this investigation simulates those interactions by studying them at the larger microscopic level. This type of research is possible only on the space station, where Earth’s gravity is not strong enough to interact with the molecules in a sample, so they behave more like they would at the nanoscale. Knowledge gleaned from the investigation may have implications for drug delivery and particle filtration, as well as future technological applications for space exploration.

Another experiment onboard Dragon is a protein crystal growth investigation focused on drug design and development. Growing protein crystals in microgravity can help researchers avoid some of the obstacles inherent to protein crystallization on Earth, such as sedimentation. One investigation will study the effect of microgravity on the co-crystallization of a membrane protein to determine its three-dimensional structure. This will enable scientists to chemically target and inhibit, with “designer” compounds, an important human biological pathway thought to be responsible for several types of cancer.

The spacecraft is scheduled to depart the space station May 11 for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, west of Baja California, bringing almost 3,500 pounds of science, hardware and spacewalking tools back to Earth for further study, including biological samples from NASA’s one-year mission.

The International Space Station is a convergence of science, technology and human innovation that demonstrates new technologies and makes research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The space station has been continuously occupied since November 2000. In that time, it has been visited by more than 200 people and a variety of international and commercial spacecraft. The space station remains the springboard to NASA's next great leap in exploration, including future missions to an asteroid and Mars.