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":"Hall thrusters are being considered for many space missions because their high specific impulse delivers a larger payload mass fraction than chemical rockets. With a low thrust, however, Hall thrusters need to operate for a long period of time to achieve the necessary velocity of the mission. For these missions, the lifetime requirements can reach into tens of thousands of hours. For Hall thrusters, the most important life-limiting process is the erosion of the channel walls. However, experimental verification of lifetime is time-consuming and expensive. Therefore, computational method is a useful tool to predict thruster lifetime. Many of the Hall thruster lifetime models were developed, and some of theses models gave quite promising results. However, while qualitatively interesting, the results did not match well with experiment. The reason of this discrepancy is that these numerical models assume electrons as a fluid. The proposed innovation will provide a better understanding of the erosion physics and will be useful for future Hall thruster development, such as HiVHAc, with low cost and time. This tool also will allow to aid in the acceptance and implementation of Hall thrusters as a primary propulsion device through improving confidence of their long term reliability.","benefits":"A kinetic molecular dynamic erosion model has numerous applications outside of the scope of NASA. There are a number of companies that develop electric propulsion system in US and other countries. All of these companies spent more than a thousand hours to test their thruster lifetime. They all need an accurate tool which can predict the lifetime for developing Hall thrusters. Recently, Space Systems/Loral has developed the BEPPA code for modeling plume interactions with spacecraft. They chose the detailed electron fluid model developed by Boyd at University of Michigan. It is known that the detailed model results are very sensitive to the channel exit conditions. The model proposed here can provide accurate initial conditions for plasma plume simulations for the hybrid model. The work proposed here is also directly applicable to relevant Hall thruster lifetime issues presently being studied at AFRL/RZSS. The kinetic molecular dynamic erosion tool can be used to model low energy xenon ion impact for fabrication of hard coatings such as cubic boron nitride or titanium nitride films. The tool would also offer a way to understand and help to optimize the deposition process with low cost. It would offer a way to optimize the deposition process and to investigate the plasma surface interaction for future fusion device development such as ITER with low costThe 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":"Hall thrusters are being considered for many space missions because their high specific impulse delivers a larger payload mass fraction than chemical rockets. With a low thrust, however, Hall thrusters need to operate for a long period of time to achieve the necessary velocity of the mission. For these missions, the lifetime requirements can reach into tens of thousands of hours. For Hall thrusters, the most important life-limiting process is the erosion of the channel walls. However, experimental verification of lifetime is time-consuming and expensive. Therefore, computational method is a useful tool to predict thruster lifetime. Many of the Hall thruster lifetime models were developed, and some of theses models gave quite promising results. However, while qualitatively interesting, the results did not match well with experiment. The reason of this discrepancy is that these numerical models assume electrons as a fluid. The proposed innovation will provide a better understanding of the erosion physics and will be useful for future Hall thruster development, such as HiVHAc, with low cost and time. This tool also will allow to aid in the acceptance and implementation of Hall thrusters as a primary propulsion device through improving confidence of their long term reliability.","benefits":"A kinetic molecular dynamic erosion model has numerous applications outside of the scope of NASA. There are a number of companies that develop electric propulsion system in US and other countries. All of these companies spent more than a thousand hours to test their thruster lifetime. They all need an accurate tool which can predict the lifetime for developing Hall thrusters. Recently, Space Systems/Loral has developed the BEPPA code for modeling plume interactions with spacecraft. They chose the detailed electron fluid model developed by Boyd at University of Michigan. It is known that the detailed model results are very sensitive to the channel exit conditions. The model proposed here can provide accurate initial conditions for plasma plume simulations for the hybrid model. The work proposed here is also directly applicable to relevant Hall thruster lifetime issues presently being studied at AFRL/RZSS. The kinetic molecular dynamic erosion tool can be used to model low energy xenon ion impact for fabrication of hard coatings such as cubic boron nitride or titanium nitride films. The tool would also offer a way to understand and help to optimize the deposition process with low cost. It would offer a way to optimize the deposition process and to investigate the plasma surface interaction for future fusion device development such as ITER with low cost