ExoTerra Resource, LLC — National Aeronautics and Space Administration SBIR Phase I: S3

Description

Many of NASAs high priority missions in the next decade are located in extreme environments with low, inconsistent or no sunlight.nbsp; In these cases, NASA has traditionally used RTGs.nbsp; However, RTGs are inefficient (lt;8%), with specific powers of just 2.7 W/kg.nbsp; Complicating issues is the scarcity of GPHS units due to a long drought of plutonium production.nbsp; Even with a restart in production, this necessitates judicious use of remaining GPHS units.ExoTerrarsquo;s proposed advanced micro Brayton energy converter operates a pair of units off a single GPHS.nbsp; The units are 40% efficient, enabling 100 W of electrical power and a gt;40 W/kg specific power.nbsp; The system uses advances in manufacturing techniques to enable high efficiency heat transfer among components and miniaturize the Brayton Cycle components.nbsp; By using a pair of units, we balance inertias across the spacecraft to maintain control.The proposed Phase I effort completes system design of the micro Brayton unit.nbsp; We then fabricate a compressor unit to demonstrate the advanced manufacturing techniques.nbsp; We perform a demonstration test to measure the performance against predictions and feed into Phase II development.