Goddard's IRAD program is managed under Goddard's Office of Chief Technologist. Activities are coordinated in collaboration with the Sciences and Exploration Directorate; Applied Engineering and Technology Directorate; Flight Projects Directorate; Wallops Flight Facility; New Opportunites Office; SBIR/STTR program; Goddard Strategic Partnerships Office; and the Export Compliance Office.
IRAD provides"seed funding" to develop concepts, reduce technology risk, and advance human capital and technological capabilities. The program is highly competitive, opportunity-driven, and 100% strategically aligned with NASA's and GSFC's strategic priorities. A significant portion of the program is focused on Early Stage Innovations for high-risk, strategically aligned, potential high-payoff technologies that are longer-term or lower TRL.
","parentProgram":{"ableToSelect":false,"acronym":"IRAD","isActive":true,"programId":87,"responsibleMd":{"canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":""},"title":"Center Independent Research & Development","manageGaps":false,"acronymOrTitle":"IRAD"},"parentProgramId":87,"programId":153,"responsibleMd":{"organizationId":4910,"organizationName":"Mission Support Directorate","acronym":"MSD","organizationType":"NASA_Mission_Directorate","canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":"NASA Mission Directorate"},"responsibleMdOffice":4910,"title":"Center Independent Research & Development: GSFC IRAD","manageGaps":false,"acronymOrTitle":"GSFC IRAD"},"description":"The CubeSat Design Tool will assist CubeSat mission design teams in creating a feasible CubeSat proposal. An extensive CubeSat database contains data on CubeSat parts, which then gets fed into a program to downselect components based upon mission requirements, information gathered about flight heritage, and prior lessons learned. The user will then be able to pick and place the components using a graphic user interface (GUI) and a prompt. This project will simplify the proposal step and expand the user's reach in choosing the correct CubeSat components for the mission.
The goal of the CubeSat Design Tool is to gather all of the elements needed for CubeSat design in one place and make them readily accessible and easy to use. The tool consists of three parts: The Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) program, the Graphical User Interface (GUI), and the wiki page. The MBSE program selects compatible and optimized CubeSat parts from a database. These parts are then positioned inside of the CubeSat structure by the user, using the GUI portion of the tool. Part details will be stored in and accessed from the wiki page, including flight history, lessons learned, datasheets, and radiation tolerances.
This program will aid in the selection of components and systems for CubeSat mission proposals. It will use MBSE programming to select parts compatible with user-inputted requirements and constraints, selected from a preexisting CubeSat parts database. The parts will then be ported over to a GUI (graphical user interface) which uses part boundaries and connector/hardware locations to help the user snap the part into place within a CubeSat structure. Mass, hardware required, and other parameters can be obtained from the finished model.
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