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"},"acronym":"COMP-X","description":"Classes of future scientific instrumentation in the Astrophysics, Earth Science, and Planetary Science application areas share a common requirement - broadband signal readout, conversion, and processing beyond 1 billion samples per second. Many astrophysics studies currently underway in the Advanced Concepts and Formulation Office, are driving this requirement, with some JWST-follow on concepts requiring onboard signal acquisition and processing in the Terahertz regeime. Future telescopes, broadband spectrometers, radar, radiometers, and lidar digitizers are all instrument classes that are encompassed in this staggering requirement. To address the issue for both near-term and long-term instrumentation, COMP-X is proposed as a broadband signal processing platform that serves as the starting point for development of a common-hardware approach to serve multiple applications in a re-programmable fashion.
","benefits":"This project matures several mission concepts by developing COMP-X as a key enabling technology that is both scalable and optimized for the mission in the long-term. COMP-X is an electronics card featuring programmable digital logic and new signal converter technology that will achieve signal generation and capture up to 4 GHz in bandwidth. This card will be the development platform used to prepare the digital logic for detector readout, which will then be migrated to an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) in a larger-future development effort that will leverage SBIR and NASA SMD research resources. The anticipated benefit is a prototyping platform that allows wideband instrument signal processing systems to be developed in preparation for ASIC migration and implementation where there is a definite advantage in overall SWaP for the instrument.
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