The NASA SBIR and STTR programs fund the research, development, and demonstration of innovative technologies that fulfill NASA needs as described in the annual Solicitations and have significant potential for successful commercialization. If you are a small business concern (SBC) with 500 or fewer employees or a non-profit RI such as a university or a research laboratory with ties to an SBC, then NASA encourages you to learn more about the SBIR and STTR programs as a potential source of seed funding for the development of your innovations.
The SBIR and STTR programs have 3 phases:
The SBIR and STTR Phase I contracts last for 6 months with a maximum funding of $125,000, and Phase II contracts last for 24 months with a maximum funding of $750,000 - $1.5 million.
Opportunity for Continued Technology Development Post-Phase II:
The NASA SBIR/STTR Program currently has in place two initiatives for supporting its small business partners past the basic Phase I and Phase II elements of the program that emphasize opportunities for commercialization. Specifically, the NASA SBIR/STTR Program has the Phase II Enhancement (Phase II-E) and Phase II eXpanded (Phase II-X) contract options.
Please review the links below to obtain more information on the SBIR/STTR programs.
Provides an overview of the SBIR and STTR programs as implemented by NASA
Provides access to the annual SBIR/STTR Solicitations containing detailed information on the program eligibility requirements, proposal instructions and research topics and subtopics
Schedule and links for the SBIR/STTR solicitations and selection announcements
Federal and non-Federal sources of assistance for small business
Search our complete archive of awarded project abstracts to learn about what NASA has funded
Still have questions? Visit the program FAQs
","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":73,"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":36648,"title":"Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer","manageGaps":false,"acronymOrTitle":"SBIR/STTR"},"description":"Aeroelasticity plays an important role in the design and development of highly flexible flight vehicles and blended wing body configurations. The operating margins on these flight systems are limited by non-linear unsteady phenomena such as stall, flutter, gusts, limit cycle oscillations, vortex roll-up which exhibit strong coupling between the aero-loads and structural deformations. The use of high-fidelity time domain methods such as CFD/FEM during the design phase has been limited by the cost of computing the unsteady physics. In this proposal researchers from CRAFT Tech and Georgia Tech offer a collaborative inter-disciplinary design optimization approach to aeroelasticity problems with high fidelity aerodynamics analysis and structural dynamics. This approach is primarily feasible because of the development of a novel unsteady analysis procedure that reconstructs the unsteady dynamics with high accuracy and nominal cost. The reconstruction procedure combines CFD and FEM with a modified Proper Orthogonal Decomposition method and an Artificial Neural Network to simulate the unsteady aeroelastic features associated with different shape designs with good reliability. Furthermore, the process of reconstructing the unsteady solution permits the incorporation of control strategies and time variant system responses making it appealing for the aeroservoelasticity class of problems.","benefits":"The design tools developed have wide applicability at NASA. The primary focus of the proposal is related to the design of flexible wing configurations used in HALE class of flight vehicles. However, the technology can have a significant impact on NASA's fixed wing program in guiding design of ultra-high bypass ratio engines and open rotor propeller systems from an aeroelasticity perspective. The smaller blades that are used in the ultra-high bypass ratio engines have very different aeroelastic characteristics and threshold criteria for fatigue and structural failure from traditional engines. The modern open rotor propeller systems are designed as a twin rotor configuration where there is significant interaction between the forward and aft rotors making the blades susceptible to flutter. Lastly, boundary layer flow distortion in BWB configurations can result in large dynamic pressures on fan blades in the embedded engines resulting in the increased risk of flutter.The NASA SBIR and STTR programs fund the research, development, and demonstration of innovative technologies that fulfill NASA needs as described in the annual Solicitations and have significant potential for successful commercialization. If you are a small business concern (SBC) with 500 or fewer employees or a non-profit RI such as a university or a research laboratory with ties to an SBC, then NASA encourages you to learn more about the SBIR and STTR programs as a potential source of seed funding for the development of your innovations.
The SBIR and STTR programs have 3 phases:
The SBIR and STTR Phase I contracts last for 6 months with a maximum funding of $125,000, and Phase II contracts last for 24 months with a maximum funding of $750,000 - $1.5 million.
Opportunity for Continued Technology Development Post-Phase II:
The NASA SBIR/STTR Program currently has in place two initiatives for supporting its small business partners past the basic Phase I and Phase II elements of the program that emphasize opportunities for commercialization. Specifically, the NASA SBIR/STTR Program has the Phase II Enhancement (Phase II-E) and Phase II eXpanded (Phase II-X) contract options.
Please review the links below to obtain more information on the SBIR/STTR programs.
Provides an overview of the SBIR and STTR programs as implemented by NASA
Provides access to the annual SBIR/STTR Solicitations containing detailed information on the program eligibility requirements, proposal instructions and research topics and subtopics
Schedule and links for the SBIR/STTR solicitations and selection announcements
Federal and non-Federal sources of assistance for small business
Search our complete archive of awarded project abstracts to learn about what NASA has funded
Still have questions? Visit the program FAQs
","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":73,"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":36648,"title":"Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer","manageGaps":false,"acronymOrTitle":"SBIR/STTR"},"description":"Aeroelasticity plays an important role in the design and development of highly flexible flight vehicles and blended wing body configurations. The operating margins on these flight systems are limited by non-linear unsteady phenomena such as stall, flutter, gusts, limit cycle oscillations, vortex roll-up which exhibit strong coupling between the aero-loads and structural deformations. The use of high-fidelity time domain methods such as CFD/FEM during the design phase has been limited by the cost of computing the unsteady physics. In this proposal researchers from CRAFT Tech and Georgia Tech offer a collaborative inter-disciplinary design optimization approach to aeroelasticity problems with high fidelity aerodynamics analysis and structural dynamics. This approach is primarily feasible because of the development of a novel unsteady analysis procedure that reconstructs the unsteady dynamics with high accuracy and nominal cost. The reconstruction procedure combines CFD and FEM with a modified Proper Orthogonal Decomposition method and an Artificial Neural Network to simulate the unsteady aeroelastic features associated with different shape designs with good reliability. Furthermore, the process of reconstructing the unsteady solution permits the incorporation of control strategies and time variant system responses making it appealing for the aeroservoelasticity class of problems.","benefits":"The design tools developed have wide applicability at NASA. The primary focus of the proposal is related to the design of flexible wing configurations used in HALE class of flight vehicles. However, the technology can have a significant impact on NASA's fixed wing program in guiding design of ultra-high bypass ratio engines and open rotor propeller systems from an aeroelasticity perspective. The smaller blades that are used in the ultra-high bypass ratio engines have very different aeroelastic characteristics and threshold criteria for fatigue and structural failure from traditional engines. The modern open rotor propeller systems are designed as a twin rotor configuration where there is significant interaction between the forward and aft rotors making the blades susceptible to flutter. Lastly, boundary layer flow distortion in BWB configurations can result in large dynamic pressures on fan blades in the embedded engines resulting in the increased risk of flutter.