Small Business/SBIR

Solar System Technologies Explored

THE SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATION RESEARCH (SBIR) program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is supporting a number of small companies to develop new technologies intended for enhanced solar system exploration. It is hoped that some day these technologies may result in new products and discoveries that will enhance our lives.

In Situ Exploration and Sample Return is a new SBIR technology development initiative to help collect the vast amount of information required before scientists can provide a reasonable description of the nature of our solar system or be able to tell whether life previously existed on Mars or Jupiter's moon, Europa. Recent discoveries that indicate the possibility of ancient life on Mars and possible underground bodies of water on Europa have given a new sense of adventure and urgency to this work, according to Byron Jackson, program support manager at JPL.

The goals are significant overall cost and risk reduction of future science missions while reducing the need for ground control operations and communications facilities. The miniaturization of multiple spacecraft and landers, rather than a single large spacecraft, will enable future science missions to explore the planets, moons and asteroids of our solar system.

The first demonstration of new technology will occur as part of the Mars Surveyor Lander mission launched in January. Two microprobes have been designed to piggyback on the mission, utilizing its communications system to relay information on weather and soil chemistry back to Earth. Each probe weighs only two kilograms (about 4.5 pounds) and consists of a penetrator instrument package and an aeroshell to protect it during its descent to the surface of Mars. Upon impact, the penetrator will pierce the aeroshell and bury itself in the Martian soil, where it will perform in situ soil experiments.

Technologies supported by SBIR contracts in the area of in situ exploration include: lasers operating at appropriate ultraviolet and visible wavelengths to enable nondestructive nucleic and amino acid detection with a miniature detector; a micro balloon probe for aerial photography based on a self-inflating zero-pressure (the point that limits pressure as a system's temperature approaches absolute zero) polyethylene balloon; and a control strategy for robotic systems that is calibration free, robust, highly accurate and suitable for sampling and retrieval tasks. These represent only a few of the innovations the NASA SBIR program is supporting that will enhance our ability to explore the solar system.

For more information, contact Byron Jackson at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Call: 818/354-1246, Fax: 818/354-2385, E-mail: Byron.L.Jackson@jpl.nasa.gov
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Launch pad workers prepare the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft before it lofted into space in January 1999. Technologies being developed to continue the Surveyor mission are showing commercial promise.

Technologies with potential commercial applications are being developed for explorations beyond the Mars Surveyor mission.