Funding, Grants & Awards | News

10 Universities Win $250,000 Research Grants from NASA

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 09/26/13

NASA will award 10 one-year grants worth approximately $250,000 each for the "study of innovative, early stage space technologies that address high priority technical needs America's space program must master to enable future missions," according to an agency news release. One-year extensions of the grants may be possible.

The universities selected, and the titles of their proposals, include:

• Johns Hopkins University, "Detection, tracking, and identification of asteroids through on-board image analysis;"
• Michigan Technological University, "A new experiment for determining evaporation and condensation coefficients of cryogenic propellants and development of an efficient computational model of cryogenic film stability in microgravity;"
• Northwestern University, "Broadband electrically tunable monolithic mid-infrared laser;"
• Purdue University, "Innovations in understanding and modeling cryogenic propellants for long-duration spaceflight;"
• University of Arkansas, "Asynchronous A/D converter for in situ instruments operating under extreme environments;"
• University of Colorado, Boulder, "Comprehensive modeling of the effects of hazardous asteroid mitigation techniques;"
• University of Florida, "Bio-inspired broadband antireflection coatings at long wavelengths for space applications;"
• University of Michigan, "Broad bandwidth metamaterial antireflection coatings for measurement of the cosmic microwave background;"
• University of South Carolina, "Oxygen recovery via carbon dioxide electrolysis with microtubular solid oxide cells;" and
• University of Utah, "A lightweight compact multi-spectral imager using novel computer-generated micro-optics and spectral-extraction algorithms."

"A critical element of America's space technology pipeline rests in the cutting edge research in the early stage technologies conducted at the nation's universities," said NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Technology Michael Gazarik, in a prepared statement. "Through this investment NASA will continue to benefit from university-led R and D."

More information is available at nasa.gov.