Technologies developed during this SBIR effort could be used for several non-NASA applications, including commercial inflatable space stations, lighter-than-air vehicle envelope monitoring, and solar electric generation system monitoring. Private commercial space technology companies seek to place inflatable space stations in low earth orbit in the next decade, and could benefit from significantly improved monitoring technologies enabled by the sensor technology developed through this SBIR. This technology could also be used to monitor the performance and health of airship and aerostat hulls, which are increasingly used by the USA military for situational awareness in combat zones.
The primary target market for the Titan Montgolfiere Terrestrial Test Bed is the Titan Saturn System Mission (TSSM), including preparatory research projects and the actual mission. Technologies developed during this SBIR effort could be used for several NASA applications, including other planetary exploration missions, inflatable space habitats, and scientific terrestrial balloons. NASA JPL's effort to develop a Montgolfiere balloon for Mars could benefit from computational fluid dynamic (CFD) models validated with data generated by a similar Terrestrial Test Bed. The capabilities developed during this SBIR could also be used to embed pressure sensors directly into inflatable space habitats to monitor performance. Another potential application would be to embed temperature sensors into scientific terrestrial balloons in order to better understand the performance and help further optimize innovative balloon concepts and robust designs.
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