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Participating Center(s): ARC, JPL, JSC



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Participating Center(s): ARC, JPL, JSC
Future NASA science missions will employ Earth orbiting spacecraft, planetary spacecraft, balloons, aircraft, surface assets, and marine craft as observation platforms. Proposals are solicited to develop advanced power-generation and conversion technologies to enable or enhance the capabilities of future science missions. Requirements for these missions are varied and include long life, high reliability, significantly lower mass and volume, higher mass specific power, and improved efficiency over the state of practice for components and systems. Other desired capabilities are high radiation tolerance and the ability to operate in extreme environments (high and low temperatures and over wide temperature ranges). 

While power-generation technology affects a wide range of NASA missions and operational environments, technologies that provide substantial benefits for key mission applications/capabilities are being sought in the following areas:




Photovoltaic Energy Conversion 

Photovoltaic cell, blanket, and array technologies that lead to significant improvements in overall solar array performance (i.e., conversion efficiency >33%, array mass specific power >300watts/kilogram, decreased stowed volume, reduced initial and recurring cost, long-term operation in high radiation environments, high power arrays, and a wide range of space environmental operating conditions) are solicited. Photovoltaic technologies that provide enhancing and/or enabling capabilities for a wide range of aerospace mission applications will be considered.  Technologies that address specific NASA Science mission needs include: 





  • Photovoltaic cell and blanket technologies capable of low intensity, low-temperature operation applicable to outer planetary (low solar intensity) missions.

  • Photovoltaic cell, blanket and array technologies capable of enhancing solar array operation in a high intensity, high-temperature environment (i.e., inner planetary and solar probe-type missions).

  • Solar arrays to support Extreme Environments Solar Power type missions, including long-lived, radiation tolerant, cell and blanket technologies capable of operating in environments characterized by varying degrees of light intensity and temperature.

  • Lightweight solar array technologies applicable to science missions using solar electric propulsion. Current science missions being studied require solar arrays that provide 1 to 20 kilowatts of power at 1 AU, greater than 300 watts/kilogram specific power, operation in the range of 0.7 to 3 AU, low stowed volume, and the ability to provide operational array voltages up to 300 volts.


Stirling Power Conversion
Advances in, but not limited to, the following:


  • Novel Stirling convertor configurations that provide high efficiency (>25%), low mass, long life (>10 yrs), and high reliability for use in 100-500 We Stirling radioisotope generators.

  • Advanced Stirling convertor components including hot-end heat exchangers, cold-end heat exchangers, regenerators, linear alternators, engine controllers, and radiators.

  • Innovative Stirling generator features that improve the fault tolerance (e.g., heat source backup cooling devices, mechanical balancers) or expand the mission applications (e.g., duplex power and cooling systems).


Direct Energy Conversion
Advances in, but not limited to, the following:
Recent advancements in alpha/beta-voltaic energy conversion devices have the potential to increase the power level, improve reliability, and increase the lifetime of this power technology. The increased use of cubesat/smallsat technology and autonomous remote sensors in support of NASA Science Mission goals has demonstrated the need for low-power, non-solar energy sources.  The area of Direct Energy Conversion seeks technology advancements that address, but are not limited to:


  • Experimental demonstration of long life (multiyear) alpha-voltaic and beta-voltaic devices with device-level conversion efficiencies in excess of 10%, high reliability, minimal operational performance degradation, and the ability to scale up to 1-10 W of electrical power output with system-level specific power of 5 W/kg or higher.


S3.03 Power Electronics and Management, and Energy Storage

Lead Center: GRC

Participating Center(s): ARC, GSFC, JPL, JSC
NASA’s science vision (https://smd-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/science-green/s3fs-public/atoms/files/2014_Science_Plan_PDF_Update_508_TAGGED.pdf) is to use the vantage point of space to achieve with the science community and our partners a deep scientific understanding of the Sun and its effects on the solar system, our home planet, other planets and solar system bodies, the interplanetary environment, and the universe beyond. Scientific priorities for future planetary science missions are guided by the recommendations of the decadal surveys published by the National Academies. The goal of the decadal surveys is to articulate the priorities of the scientific community, and the surveys are therefore the starting point for NASA’s strategic planning process in science (https://smd-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/science-green/s3fs-public/atoms/files/FY2014_NASA_StrategicPlan_508c.pdf). The most recent planetary science decadal survey, Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013 - 2022, was released in 2011. This report recommended a balanced suite of missions to enable a steady stream of new discoveries and capabilities to address challenges such as sample return missions and outer planet exploration. Under this subtopic, proposals are solicited to develop energy storage and power electronics to enable or enhance the capabilities of future NASA science missions. The unique requirements for the power systems for these missions can vary greatly, with advancements in components needed above the current State of the Art (SOA) for high energy density, high power density, long life, high reliability, low mass/volume, and wide temperature operation. Other subtopics which could potentially benefit from these technology developments include S4.04 Extreme Environments Technology, and S4.01 Planetary Entry, Descent and Landing Technology. This subtopic is also directly tied to S3.02 Propulsion Systems for Robotic Science Missions for the development of advanced Power Processing Units and associated components.


Power Electronics and Management

NASAs Planetary Science Division is working to implement a balanced portfolio within the available budget and based on the decadal survey that will continue to make exciting scientific discoveries about our solar system. This balanced suite of missions shows the need for low mass/volume power electronics and management systems and components that can operate in extreme environment for future NASA Science Missions. In addition, studying the Sun, the heliosphere, and other planetary environments as an interconnected system is critical for understanding the implications for Earth and humanity as we venture forth through the solar system. To that end, the NASA heliophysics program seeks to perform innovative space research missions to understand:




  • The Sun and its variable activity.

  • How solar activity impacts Earth and the solar system.

  • Fundamental physical processes that are important at Earth and throughout the universe by using space as a laboratory.

Heliophysics also seeks to enable research based on these missions and other sources to understand the connections among the Sun, Earth, and the solar system for science and to assure human safety and security both on Earth and as we explore beyond it. Advances in electrical power technologies are required for the electrical components and systems of these future spacecrafts/platforms to address program size, mass, efficiency, capacity, durability, and reliability requirements. Radioisotope power systems (RPS), Advanced Modular Power Systems (AMPS) and In-Space Electric Propulsion (ISP) are several programs of interest which would directly benefit from advancements in this technology area. These types of programs, including Mars Sample Return using Hall thrusters and power processing units (PPUs), require advancements in components and systems beyond the state-of-the-art. Of importance are expected improvements in energy density, speed, efficiency, or wide-temperature operation (-125° C to over 450° C) with a number of thermal cycles. Novel approaches to minimizing the weight of advanced PPUs are also of interest. Advancements are sought for power electronic devices, components, packaging and cabling for programs with power ranges of a few watts for minimum missions to up to 20 kilowatts for large missions. In addition to electrical component development, RPS has a need for intelligent, fault-tolerant Power Management and Distribution (PMAD) technologies to efficiently manage the system power for these deep space missions.


Overall technologies of interest include:


  • High power density/high efficiency power electronics and associated drivers for switching elements.

  • Non-traditional approaches to switching devices, such as addition of graphene and carbon nano-tubes to material.

  • Lightweight, highly conductive power cables and/or cables integrated with vehicle structures.

  • Intelligent power management and fault-tolerant electrical components and PMAD systems.

  • Advanced electronic packaging for thermal control and electromagnetic shielding.

  • Integrated packaging technology for modularity.


Note to Proposers - Cubesat power technologies have been moved to a new STMD subtopic: Z8.03 Small Spacecraft Power and Thermal Control
Energy Storage

Future science missions will require advanced primary and secondary battery systems capable of operating at temperature extremes from -100° C for Titan missions to 400 to 500° C for Venus missions, and a span of -230° C to +120° C for Lunar Quest. The Outer Planet Assessment Group and the 2011 PSD Relevant Technologies Document have specifically called out high energy density storage systems as a need for the Titan/Enceladus Flagship and planetary exploration missions. In addition, high energy-density rechargeable electrochemical battery systems that offer greater than 50,000 charge/discharge cycles (10 year operating life) for low-earth-orbiting spacecraft, 20 year life for geosynchronous (GEO) spacecraft, are desired. Advancements to battery energy storage capabilities that address one or more of the above requirements for the stated missions combined with very high specific energy and energy density (>200 Wh/kg for secondary battery systems), along with radiation tolerance are of interest.


In addition to batteries, other advanced energy storage/load leveling technologies designed to the above mission requirements, such as mechanical or magnetic energy storage devices, are of interest. These technologies have the potential to minimize the size and mass of future power systems.


Research should be conducted to demonstrate technical feasibility during Phase I and show a path toward a Phase II, and when possible, deliver a demonstration unit for NASA testing at the completion of the Phase II contract. Phase II emphasis should be placed on developing and demonstrating the technology under relevant test conditions. Additionally, a path should be outlined that shows how the technology could be commercialized or further developed into science-worthy systems.
Z1.01 High Power, High Voltage Electronics

Lead Center: GSFC

Participating Center(s): GRC JPL, LaRC
NASA is seeking performance improvements to Power Management and Distribution (PMAD) systems through increases to the operating voltages of these electrical components. Specifically, NASA is developing Solar Electric Propulsion systems that use Power Processing Units (PPUs) to convert the 300V solar array output to the 700V-2000V input level of an electric thruster.   Although many diodes and transistors exist in the commercial market place that would represent significant improvements over the state of the art space-qualified components, these parts have failed to pass critical tests related to space qualification most importantly in terms of their radiation tolerance.   It is believed that the development and integration of high-voltage diodes and transistors that can be space-qualified will lead to increases in system-level performance as they will tend to increase efficiency and decrease mass at the system architecture level. 
Proposals are solicited that address the gap for high-power, high-voltage electrical, electronic and electromechanical (EEE) parts suitable for the space environment through design and development of high-voltage, high-power diodes and/or transistors.  Proposals must state the initial component state of the art and justify the expected final performance metrics. The proposals must also include plans for validating tolerance to both heavy-ion and total dose radiation. Target radiation performance levels include:


  • 300 krad(Si) total ionizing dose tolerance.

  • For vertical-field power devices:  No heavy-ion induced permanent destructive effects upon irradiation while in blocking configuration (in powered reverse-bias/off state) with ions having a silicon-equivalent surface-incident linear energy transfer (LET) of 40 MeV-cm2/mg and sufficient energy to fully penetrate the epitaxial layer(s) prior to the ions reaching their maximum LET (Bragg peak).

  • For all other devices:  No heavy-ion induced permanent destructive effects upon irradiation while in blocking configuration (in powered reverse-bias/off state) with ions having a silicon-equivalent surface-incident linear energy transfer (LET) of 75 MeV-cm2/mg and sufficient energy to fully penetrate the active volume prior to the ions reaching their maximum LET (Bragg peak).


Z1.02 Surface Energy Storage

Lead Center: GRC

Participating Center(s): JPL, JSC
NASA is seeking innovative energy storage solutions for surface missions on the moon and Mars. The objective is to develop energy storage systems for landers, construction equipment, crew rovers, and science platforms. Energy requirements for mobile assets are expected to range up to 120 kW-hr with potential for clustering of smaller building blocks to meet the total need. Requirements for energy storage systems used in combination with surface solar arrays range from 500 kW-hr (Mars) to over 14 MW-hr (moon). Applicable technologies such as batteries and regenerative fuel cells should be lightweight, long-lived, and low cost. Of particular interest are technologies that are multi-use (e.g., moon and Mars) or cross-platform (e.g., lander use and rover use). Strong consideration should be given to environmental robustness for surface environments that include day/night thermal cycling, natural radiation, partial gravity, vacuum or very low ambient pressure, reduced solar insolation, dust, and wind. Creative ideas that utilize local materials to store energy would also be considered under this subtopic.
Advanced secondary batteries that go beyond lithium-ion, can safely provide >300-400 watt-hours per kilogram, and have long calendar and shelf lives are highly desired for cross-cutting applications. Secondary batteries that can operate at -60°C with excellent capacity retention as compared to room temperature operation are also highly desired. Additionally, for the Mars Ascent vehicle, secondary batteries that can operate reliably after a 15 year shelf life are

highly desired.


 
Of interest for fuel cells and regenerative fuel cells are technologies that can mature hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells and electrolyzers and can address challenges common to both fuel cells fed by oxygen and methane and electrolyzers fed by carbon dioxide and/or water. Hydrocarbon fuels of interest include, but are not limited to, methane, residual fuel scavenged from lander propulsion tanks, and fuels generated by processing lunar and Mars soils. Components and systems of interest include fuel cells, stack, materials, and system development. For space and Lunar applications, gravity-independent operation should be considered in the design. For Mars applications, cell and stacks capable of Mars atmosphere electrolysis should be considered in the design. High power density for fuel cells, high efficiency for regenerative fuel cells, and designs that are scalable to 1 to 3kW sizes are highly desirable.

 

Z1.03 Surface Power Generation



Lead Center: GRC

Participating Center(s): JPL, JSC
NASA is seeking novel fission-based power generation technologies for surface missions on the moon and Mars. The objective is to develop power generation systems for landers, crewed habitats, and in-situ resource utilization plants. Power requirements are expected to range up to 40 kW with potential for clustering of smaller building blocks to meet the total need. Applicable thermal energy conversion should be lightweight, long-lived, and low cost. Of particular interest are technologies that are multi-use (e.g., moon and Mars).  Strong consideration should be given to environmental robustness for surface environments that include day/night thermal cycling, natural radiation, partial gravity, vacuum or very low ambient pressure, dust, and wind.  Recognizing that small businesses are not likely to develop the nuclear fuel core, proposals are solicited for the key non-nuclear components and sub-systems.  Specific areas of interest include power conversion technologies that enable system level specific power above 5 W/kg, advanced manufacture of heat exchangers for power conversion, reliable and radiation hard controllers, reactor and power conversion thermal interfaces, neutron reflectors, and radiation shielding.

Focus Area 3: Autonomous Systems for Space Exploration

Participating MD(s): HEOMD
The exploration of space requires the best of the nation's technical community to provide the technologies that will enable human exploration beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO): to visit asteroids, and to extend our reach to Mars. Autonomous Systems technologies provide the means of migrating mission control from Earth to spacecraft and habitats. This is enhancing for missions in the Earth-Lunar neighborhood and enabling for deep space missions. Long light-time delays, up to 42 minutes round-trip between Earth and Mars, require time-critical control decisions to be closed on-board autonomously through automation and astronaut-automation teaming rather than through round-trip communication to Earth mission control.
Long-term crewed spacecraft and habitats, such as the International Space Station, are so complex that a significant portion of the crew's time is spent keeping it operational under even under nominal conditions in low-Earth orbit, while still requiring significant real-time support from Earth. The considerable challenge is to migrate the knowledge and capability embedded in current Earth mission control, with tens to hundreds of human specialists ready to provide instant knowledge, to on-board automation that teams with astronauts to autonomously manage spacecraft and habitats. The autonomous agent subtopic addresses this challenge by soliciting proposals that leverage the growing field of cognitive computing to advance technology for deep-space autonomy.
The technology challenge for autonomous crewed systems in off-nominal conditions is even more critical. In the majority of Apollo lunar missions, Earth mission control was needed to resolve critical off-nominal situations ranging from unexplained computer alarms on Apollo 11 to the oxygen tank explosion on Apollo 13 that required executing an 87 hour free return abort trajectory around the moon and back to earth. Through creative use of Lunar Module assets, Apollo 13 had sufficient resiliency to keep the three astronauts alive despite loss of the oxygen tank and many of the capabilities of the service module. In contrast to a lunar mission, a free return abort trajectory around mars and back to earth is on the order of two years – requiring a leap in resiliency. To prevent Loss of Mission (LOM) or Loss of Crew (LOC) in deep space missions, spacecraft and habitats will require long-term resiliency to handle failures that lead to loss of critical function or unexpected expenditure of consumables. Long communication delays or accidents that cause loss of communication will require that the initial failure response be handled autonomously. The subtopic on resilient autonomous systems solicits technology for the design and quantification of resiliency in long-duration missions. The subtopic on sustainable habitats solicits technology for long-term system health management that goes beyond short-term diagnosis technology to include advances machine learning and other prognostic technologies.
Enhancing the capability of astronauts is also critical for future long-duration deep space missions. Augmented reality technology can guide astronauts in carrying out procedures through various sensory modalities. The augmented reality subtopic within the human research program topic area is very relevant to autonomous systems technologies, and proposers are encouraged to review that subtopic description.

H6.02 Resilient Autonomous Systems

Lead Center: ARC

Participating Center(s): JPL, JSC, MSFC

Related Subtopic Pointers: A2.02, A3.02
Future human spaceflight missions will place crews at large distances and light-time delays from Earth, requiring novel capabilities for crews with limited ground support to manage spacecraft, habitats, and supporting equipment to prevent Loss of Mission (LOM) or Loss of Crew (LOC) over extended duration missions. In particular, these capabilities are needed to handle faults leading to loss of critical function or unexpected expenditure of consumables. Expanded flight control functionality will be on-board spacecraft to support autonomy with significant automation, autonomy, and decision support software. The increasingly complex interconnectivity of these elements introduces new vulnerabilities within space systems that are sometimes impossible to predict.  In that context, one key property of the respective system is its resilience to unforeseen events.
Resilience, as defined by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences [1] (NAS), is the ability to plan and prepare for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events.  Within this definition, resilience has two manifestations: engineering and ecological.  Engineering resilience is focused on the ability of a system to absorb and recover from adverse events, while ecological resilience is focused on understanding how close a system is to collapse and reorganization.  The engineering definition brings resilience principles such as robustness, redundancy, and modularity, while the ecological definition supports principles of flexibility, adaptability, and resourcefulness.
To enable resilient behavior of a system (such as a vehicle, a habitat, a rover, etc.), "resilience" needs to be built-in during the design phase of the system development. To that end, the operational states of a system’s component need to be considered in conjunction with the intended function of the component and its possible failure modes throughout the vehicle's life cycle. Where possible, critical failures are eliminated during the design stage. For failure modes that cannot be eliminated, a mechanism needs to be designed that considers how to have optimal state awareness during operations and to mitigate the fault. Mitigation can be accomplished through fault avoidance, fault masking, or Fault Detection, Assessment, and Recovery (FDIR). FDIR can be realized through hardware or software solutions as well as by intervention of the mission crew or mission control.  The detection / assessment / recovery process will involve identification of:


  • Small variations in overall system performance that may “coincide and combine” to produce significant risk.

  • Dependencies within the system that contribute to unforeseen increased risk.

  • The strategies and solutions used by crew and controllers to run mission operations safely.

  • Recovery/fallback mechanisms that help the human/technology system cope with foreseen and unforeseen operational conditions and events.

  • The adaptability and flexibility needed to handle unpredictable and uncertain situations.

  • The different technical, functional, and procedural features that can interact in a positive way to achieve mission success.

Four processes characterize the emergence of resilience as a system property:




  • Sensing - measuring new information about a system’s operating environment with focus on anomalous data.  These data can alert system evaluators of overlooked possibilities. This process connects components in the physical domain to the information domain.

  • Anticipation - imagining multiple future states without reducing improbability to impossibility; this includes incorporating the uncertainty in the future states and including the impact of such uncertainty on system operation. This process connects components in the information domain to the cognitive domain.

  • Adaptation - reacting to changing conditions or uncertain states to restore critical functionality under altered conditions or operating environments. This process connects the cognitive domain to the physical domain.

  • Learning - observing external conditions and system responses to improve understanding of relationships and possible futures, identifying needs for system improvement where applicable. This process links the physical, information, and cognitive domains together and can incorporate the social or human crew domain depending on the system studied.

Since a vehicle is made up of many components, a system-of-system’s approach needs to be considered in a multi-objective optimization context to account for interdependencies and to realize possible mutually beneficial mitigation solutions for resiliency.


Proposals to this subtopic should specify innovation and approaches toward two goals:


  • Development of methods and tools that allow the assessment and optimization of system resilience during its conceptual design stage, while simultaneously maximizing reliability and safety.

  • Development of measures and metrics that quantify the degree of resilience of a system with respect to a mission ConOps and hazard analysis.

Resilience measures and metrics must be general enough to support broad applications, yet precise enough to measure system-specific qualities. Such metrics are necessary to make resource and operations decisions. Risk metrics tend to assess risks to individual components, ignoring system functionality as the result of interacting components. Resilience measures and metrics also need to account for uncertainty in the planned operation of the system, and focus on integrating statistical methods for uncertainty propagation into resilience-based design. Rather than the static view of systems and networks in risk assessment, resilience adopts a dynamic view. This means resilience metrics must also consider the ability of a system to plan, prepare, and adapt as adverse events occur, rather than focus entirely on threat prevention and mitigation. Finally, resilience depends upon specific qualities that risk assessment cannot quantify, such as system flexibility and interconnectedness.


Proposed solutions are expected to have characteristics including (but not limited to):


  • Life-cycle models (i.e., models that assess the resilience of the system over its entire life-cycle) that encapsulate cost/benefit of envisioned design solution and that can be used to inform about the resilience of the system.

  • Models may need to be built at the appropriate fidelity level to capture relevant fault behavior.

  • Models may need to assess behavior and consequences during degraded (or faulted) state.

  • Models should also be able to assess mitigation actions that are part of an integrated health management approach.

  • Design optimization methodology that can systematically incorporate health management solutions.

  • Methods that integrate optimal decision-making into the design concept.

  • Methods that make use of both system health models and observations to provide the best decision given the information available.

  • Methodology to allow bi-directional exchange between a model and the analysis tool.

  • Methods that systemically include desired levels of resilience in the design optimization process.

  • Uncertainty management.

  • Identify the various sources of uncertainty that affect system performance, and quantify their combined effect on both system failure and resilience.

  • Systematically incorporate uncertainty in the design process, thereby incorporating both resilience and likelihood of failure directly during the design stage.

 

This SBIR work aims to generate a practical toolkit for space systems that can deliver solutions with assured levels of performance, reliability and resilience, while accommodating: uncertainty; incomplete knowledge; sparsity, or high volumes, of data; and humans in the loop.

 
Metrics for success include:


  • Development of generic quantitative measures and metrics that evaluate system resilience, and their application to space relevant systems or subsystems.

  • Demonstrated improvement of resilience over baseline design for at least two different space relevant systems or subsystems.

  • Consideration of at least 3 different fault modes.

  • Software tools must be able to accept other systems or subsystems through appropriate interface.

SBIR work is expected to deliver mainly software in the form of tools used during the design stage and also prototype software that would manage resiliency during autonomous operations. For the latter, the SBIR effort should analyze sensors, computational hardware, and software stack:




  • Resiliency for the computational system should also be addressed.

  • In-space applications are preferred, but terrestrial analogues will be considered.

Proposals must demonstrate mission operations risk reduction through appropriate metrics;


Deliverables: tools developed, algorithms and any data generated in simulations or experiments.
Below are a few links to documents on resilience that may be useful to understand the context:


  • Resilience Engineering and Quantification for Sustainable Systems Development and Assessment: Socio-technical Systems and Critical Infrastructure: https://www.irgc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Haering-et-al.-Resilience-Engineering-and-Quantification.pdf.

  • The New Resilience Paradigm - Essential Strategies for a Changing Risk Landscape: https://www.irgc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Fiksel-The-New-Resilience-Paradigm.pdf.


References:
Kash Barker, Jose Emmanuel Ramirez-Marquez, Claudio M. Rocco, “Resilience-based network component importance measures”, Reliability Engineering and System Safety 117 (2013) pp.89–97.

Daniel A. Eisenberg, Igor Linkov, Jeryang Park, Matthew E. Bates, Cate Fox-Lent, Thomas P. Seager, Resilience Metrics: Lessons from Military Doctrines: http://www.thesolutionsjournal.org/node/237200.

 

 [1] Committee on Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters; Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (COSEPUP); Policy and Global Affairs (PGA); The National Academies. . Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13457. The National Academies Press. (2012).



 

H6.03 Spacecraft Autonomous Agent Cognitive Architectures for Human Exploration



Lead Center: ARC



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