{"projectId":89992,"project":{"projectId":89992,"title":"Spacecraft Swarm Coordination and Planning Tool","startDate":"2016-06-10","startYear":2016,"startMonth":6,"endDate":"2017-06-09","endYear":2017,"endMonth":6,"programId":73,"program":{"ableToSelect":false,"acronym":"SBIR/STTR","isActive":true,"description":"<p>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.</p><p><strong>The SBIR and STTR programs have 3 phases</strong>:</p><ul><li><strong>Phase I</strong> is the opportunity to establish the scientific, technical, and commercial feasibility of the proposed innovation in fulfillment of NASA needs.</li><li><strong>Phase II</strong> is focused on the development, demonstration and delivery of the proposed innovation.</li></ul><p>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.</p><ul><li><strong>Phase III</strong> is the commercialization of innovative technologies, products, and services resulting from either a Phase I or Phase II contract. Phase III contracts are funded from sources other than the SBIR and STTR programs and may be awarded without further competition.</li></ul><p><strong>Opportunity for Continued Technology Development Post-Phase II</strong>:</p><p>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.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Please review the links below to obtain more information on the SBIR/STTR programs.</strong></p><ul><li><strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/ParticipationGuide.pdf\">Participation Guide</a></strong></li></ul><p>Provides an overview of the SBIR and STTR programs as implemented by NASA</p><ul><li><strong><a href=\"http://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/solicitations\">Program Solicitations</a></strong></li></ul><p>Provides access to the annual SBIR/STTR Solicitations containing detailed information on the program eligibility requirements, proposal instructions and research topics and subtopics</p><ul><li><strong><a href=\"http://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/prg_sched_anncmnt\">Schedule and Awards</a></strong></li></ul><p>Schedule and links for the SBIR/STTR solicitations and selection announcements</p><ul><li><strong><a href=\"http://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/content/additional-sources-assistance\">Sources of Assistance</a></strong></li></ul><p>Federal and non-Federal sources of assistance for small business</p><ul><li><strong><a href=\"http://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/abstract_archives\">Awarded Abstracts</a></strong></li></ul><p>Search our complete archive of awarded project abstracts to learn about what NASA has funded</p><ul><li><strong><a href=\"http://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/content/frequently-asked-questions\">Frequently Asked Questions</a></strong></li></ul><p>&nbsp;Still have questions? Visit the program FAQs</p>","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":"Fractionated spacecraft architectures to distribute mission performance from a single, monolithic satellite across large number of smaller spacecraft, for missions like close proximity inspection, sparse aperture arrays, robotic assembly, servicing, refueling, etc., can enable higher mission capability, reconfigurability and robustness. This distributed satellite architecture, with large numbers of agents, comes at the cost of extensive mission planning and computational complexity, and greater risk of collisions. As mission profiles scale up to hundreds of agents, there is an exponential increase in the system complexity needed to both plan and control satellite swarm activity and ensure it operates safely in the environment densely populated by other agents. Aurora Flight Sciences and the MIT Space Systems Lab propose a novel and comprehensive swarm coordination and planning tool that will allow ground-based operators to provide high level mission goals, and observe and re-direct swarms of spacecraft in LEO as the autonomy dynamically plans and executes complex multi-agent missions. The proposed effort combines elements of autonomous, dynamic, multi-vehicle coordination and path planning to meet mission objectives, facilitates close-proximity operations by integrating sensors and software for collision detection and avoidance, and allows high-level human-in-the-loop control of critical mission performance by implementing a Human-Swarm interface. Phase I focuses on developing and simulating discrete elements of the conceptual tool, leveraging powerful task allocation and path planning algorithms that Aurora has developed over the past several years, coupled with MIT's autonomous collision detection & avoidance and human swarm interfaces. In Phase II we will integrate the modules with a space mission analysis tool and demonstrate performance of key technologies on the SPHERES hardware testbed.","benefits":"The proposed Swarm Coordination and Planning Tool has the potential to significantly increase the capabilities of legacy assets as well as to reduce the cost of future satellite systems by composing missions of heterogeneous teams of agents that can leverage the capabilities of each agent without having to duplicate or integrate all capabilities into a single platform. For instance, a group of navigation capable inspector satellites can provide an external inspection solution to Earth-escape vehicles like the Orion capsule or ISS; multi-aperture telescopes can provide improved optical performance and better coverage of multiple areas of interest by providing a flexible reconfigurable system; multi-satellite missions can be performed to extend the capabilities and duration of traditional monolithic satellites. Mission scenarios enabled by multi-spacecraft architectures include close-proximity inspection of space-based assets, sparse aperture arrays, robotic assembly, servicing, refueling and a host of other missions.<br /> <br />The proposed Swarm Coordination and Planning Tool (SCPT) can replace or augment pilots performing dangerous and/or high precision tasks. Crop dusting, aerial firefighting, agricultural monitoring, and environmental disaster relief involve complex routing of vehicles at low altitudes. Using the proposed concept for these applications has the potential to save lives and increase productivity. SCPT will also find applications in the burgeoning package delivery domain in which heterogeneous air and ground robots retrieve and deliver packages from base locations to delivery locations. SCPT will also be applicable in the area of warehouse management systems in which large number of cooperative mobile robots perform a majority of physical tasks, automated parking garages, autonomous cars in urban environments, automated mine sensing.","releaseStatus":"Released","status":"Completed","viewCount":594,"destinationType":["Earth"],"trlBegin":2,"trlCurrent":3,"trlEnd":3,"lastUpdated":"01/22/26","favorited":false,"detailedFunding":false,"projectContacts":[{"contactId":3163995,"canUserEdit":false,"firstName":"Robert","lastName":"Jones","fullName":"Robert Jones","fullNameInverted":"Jones, Robert","email":"Robert.A.Jones@nasa.gov","receiveEmail":"Subscribed_Contact","projectContactRole":"Project_Manager","projectContactId":545637,"projectId":89992,"programContactRolePretty":"","projectContactRolePretty":"Project Manager"},{"contactId":507478,"canUserEdit":false,"firstName":"Sachin","lastName":"Jain","fullName":"Sachin Jain","fullNameInverted":"Jain, 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