NASA selects technology validation experiments

Dolores Beasley/Gretchen Cook-Anderson
Headquarters, Washington January 28, 2005
(Phone: 202/358-1753/0836)

RELEASE: 05-033

NASA SELECTS TECHNOLOGY VALIDATION EXPERIMENTS

NASA has chosen four teams to develop a suite of advanced technologies
slated for space flight validation on the New Millennium Programs Space
Technology 8 (ST8) Mission.

The ST8 Mission, slated for launch in 2008, is a New Millennium Carrier that
will
host a varied payload of four advanced technologies. Each technology
validation
experiment will include diagnostic instruments. They will perform detailed
measurements to characterize and determine how well the technologies
performance
in space corresponds to predictions derived from ground-based testing and
modeling. The resulting data will be provided to science mission planners to
enable a broad range of space-based science projects at significantly
reduced
risk and cost. The selected suite of advanced technology experiments
includes:

Ultraflex Next Generation Solar Array System (NGU) from AEC-Able
Engineering,
Inc., Goleta, Calif. The NGU is an ultra-lightweight flexible-blanket solar
array
that deploys to provide a significant advancement in performance over
existing
state-of-the-art for high power arrays. The proposed experiment cost for the
NGU
is $6.9 million.

SAILMAST Ultra Lightweight Boom from AEC-Able Engineering, Inc. The SAILMAST
is
an ultra-light graphite mast intended for solar sail propulsion systems. The
proposed experiment cost for the SAILMAST is $4 million.

Miniature Loop Heat Pipe Small Spacecraft Thermal Management System (MLHP)
from
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The MLHP can transport
large
heat loads over long distances with small temperature differences and
without
external pumping powers to provide precise temperature control and reduce
the
need for supplemental heaters. The proposed experiment cost for the MLHP is
$9.8
million.

Environmentally Adaptive Fault Tolerant Computing System (EAFTC) from
Honeywell
International, Inc., Clearwater, Fla. The EAFTC will provide high rate on
board
processing for science data and autonomous control functions. The proposed
experiment cost for the EAFTC is $10 million.

"These technological capabilities will provide orders of magnitude in
performance
compared to the state-of-the-art technologies used in NASA satellites," said
NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator of the Science Mission Directorate,
Dr.
Ghassem Asrar. "Future NASA science and exploration missions will benefit
greatly
from these technological capabilities, which will be developed for first
flight
validation. The ST8 project will effectively develop these technologies from
the
early stages to flight readiness, and then validate them in space prior to
using
them in NASA sponsored scientific missions," he said.

NASA's New Millennium Program plans to invest approximately $40 million to
develop and flight-validate the selected technology experiments. The total
project cost for formulation and implementation, including technology
payloads,
the carrier spacecraft and the launch vehicle, is planned at $100 million.

The Programs' previous technology validation missions included Deep Space 1,
Deep
Space 2 and Earth Observing 1. The programs validated a broad range of
advanced
technologies including ion propulsion, autonomous onboard mission planning,
and
advanced land-imaging instruments. Current projects include: Space
Technology 5,
a mission to validate next generation constellations of micro-satellites;
Space
Technology 6, which is developing both an autonomous onboard science and
mission
planning system and an advanced inertial stellar compass; and Space
Technology 7,
which is developing the precision sensing and control systems required for
future
gravity wave science.

The four technology teams for the ST8 flight validation opportunity were
selected
from 37 proposers responding to a NASA Research Announcement (NRA) in
February,
2003. As a result of the NRA, 10 teams were awarded contracts for a
six-month
concept definition study phase. Study phase results were evaluated by a
NASA-led
independent peer review, which culminated in the selection of the four teams
for
continuation to the formulation refinement and implementation phases. NASA's
Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the New Millennium Program
for
the Science Mission Directorate. More information about the New Millennium
Program and its technology validation projects, including ST8, is available
on
the Web at:

http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov

For more information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

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Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info