JSC provides and applies its preeminent capabilities in science and technology to develop, operate, and integrate human exploration missions. The Center encourages collaboration with aerospace and non-aerospace industries, government agencies, and academia to solve science and technology challenges, while actively striving to maximize technology transfer into the commercial sector.
An active and sustainable science and technology development program is key to ensuring the challenges of human exploration are successfully overcome. The JSC-directed solicitations program enables the Center to invest strategically in high priority areas needed to accomplish future missions as articulated in the NASA Technology Roadmaps and the Space Technology Investment Plan (STIP). It offers the Center the ability to address technology gaps that are beyond the requirements of near-term programs to fund. It also provides a platform to continue to grow and maintain critical skills and innovations needed to ensure future mission success. These solicitations encourage use of collaborations to ensure maximum benefit to both the space program and the nation. As such, external partnerships are highly encouraged not only as a funding leverage but to bring innovative ideas and approaches into human exploration programs.
Selection Process
Typically, JSC solicitations are developed by the JSC CTO and the JSC Technology Working Group (JTWG). The competitive calls are coordinated with JSC Senior Staff and communicated to the JSC workforce via internal email distribution to an R&D community list and through postings on the internal center website and through JSC Today notices.
The JTWG solicits, evaluates and prioritizes all JSC solicitation responses in a two-stage process. The JTWG members review project proposals and work together to down-select to the finalists. The Principal Investigators (PIs) make presentations to the JTWG to provide more in-depth project details. This allows the members to select the finalists to support for the year. Selection criteria and funding vary based on the focus of the solicitation but of primary interest are:
Project Accomplishments
Through the result of research and development, JSC’s IR&D project PIs are making important progress in the advancement of technology needed to enable NASA’s mission of space exploration. In addition, many of the technologies development to meet the challenges of space exploration have great commercialization potential. Each year, many of JSC’s IR&D projects file New Technology Reports (NTRs) through the JSC Tech Transfer Office. Several of these reports have received New Technology Evaluation Patent ratings to pursue patents, while additional ones have been scheduled for success story articles to be written and published.
JSC projects active in FY12 and beyond have been included in TechPort. Through the TechPort tool information on the projects is provided and will be updated by PIs as developments and updates become available. This will offer further knowledge and information sharing between NASA developers, researchers, engineers and scientists and other internal and external stakeholders.
The JSC Chief Technologist Office (CTO) sponsors one or more Independent Research & Development (IR&D) solicitations throughout each year depending on available funds. These local solicitations primarily use a blend of Agency Center Innovation Fund (CIF) and the JSC Center Investment Account (CIA) funds to stimulate and encourage technology development, creativity, and innovation. The objective is to address the technology needs of the Agency as well as the nation. For these reasons, funds distributed to JSC support emerging technologies and creative initiatives that leverage the Center’s talent pool and unique capabilities. Scientists and engineers across the Center lead projects and establish partnerships between other centers, agencies, research laboratories, academic institutions and private industries.
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","parentProgram":{"ableToSelect":false,"isActive":true,"description":"Catalyst is a portfolio of early stage programs that specialize in different innovation constituencies and mechanisms to push the state of the art in aerospace technology development","programId":92327,"responsibleMd":{"canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":""},"title":"Catalyst","manageGaps":false,"acronymOrTitle":"Catalyst"},"parentProgramId":92327,"programId":64,"responsibleMd":{"canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":""},"stockImageFileId":36643,"title":"Center Innovation Fund","manageGaps":false,"acronymOrTitle":"CIF"},"parentProgramId":64,"programId":165,"responsibleMd":{"organizationId":4875,"organizationName":"Space Technology Mission Directorate","acronym":"STMD","organizationType":"NASA_Mission_Directorate","canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":"NASA Mission Directorate"},"responsibleMdOffice":4875,"stockImageFileId":36649,"title":"Center Innovation Fund: JSC CIF","manageGaps":false,"acronymOrTitle":"JSC CIF"},"description":"Trust is the greatest obstacle to implementing greater autonomy and automation (A&A) in the human spaceflight program. The Future Autonomous and Automated Systems Testbed (FAAST) is an R/C helicopter-based system being developed by the Aeroscience and Flight Mechanics Division (EG) as a low-cost, low-risk, hands-on way for customers (program management, crew, and operators) to become familiar with and build trust in A&A systems, and as a platform for engineers to quickly and cheaply test A&A architectures and algorithms. An early goal of this project is the development of an autonomous GN&C system, a key component of which is access to suitable sensor hardware. In this project we requested funds to procure navigation sensors (e.g. MEMS IMU, GPS receiver, LIDAR, etc.) in support of this effort. It is also envisioned as a platform for building trust in A&A systems among key stakeholders such as program/project management, crew members, and operators. We researched and procured navigation sensors (e.g. MEMS IMU, GPS receiver, LIDAR, etc.) and integrated them into the helicopter platform, with the objective of performance suitable for autonomous waypoint navigation. The intended product of this activity is the development of a prototype navigation system that will form the navigation backbone of FAAST. Upon completion of this project's work, FAAST will have a functioning navigation system suitable for enabling future A&A research objectives, including autonomous rendezvous and docking, and autonomous take-off and landing.","benefits":"
Greater autonomy and automation in human spaceflight will have many benefits to NASA and JSC, including (1) reductions in operations costs by improving onboard decision-making capability and situational awareness, thereby reducing the dependence on ground controllers, systems, and associated training, (2) enabling reductions in lifecycle costs by improving configuration flexibility, (3) increasing the time devoted to science objectives by reducing astronaut workload, and (4) enabling the Agency goal of conducting Exploration missions beyond LEO where communication lag is a concern.
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