THE NASA KENNEDY SPACE CENTER EXPLORATION RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM, APPLIED SCIENCE BRANCH (UBR3) IS…

Public award description

THE NASA KENNEDY SPACE CENTER EXPLORATION RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM, APPLIED SCIENCE BRANCH (UBR3) IS RESPONSIBLE FOR PROVIDING RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY SERVICES TO NASA AND CONTRACTOR CUSTOMERS AT KENNEDY SPACE CENTER. THIS ACQUISITION IS FOR A POST-DOCTORAL APPLICANT TO PERFORM ANALYSIS OF LUNAR VOLATILES VIA GAS CHROMATOGRAPH (GC) AS WELL AS MASS SPECTROMETER (MS) SYSTEM FOR LUNAR OPS. THROUGHOUT THE EXPLORATION OF OUR MOON, THE DETECTION OF POSSIBLE WATER HAS BEEN OF MAJOR IMPORTANCE, EARLIER EXPERIMENTS HAVE SHOWN STRONG EVIDENCE THAT FROZEN WATER IS POSSIBLY PRESENT ON THE MOON. AND WHILE THE APOLLO 15 MISSION WAS KNOWN TO UTILIZE A MASS SPECTROMETER FOR THE DETECTION OF WATER VAPORS EMITTED FROM THE MOON, VERY FEW REPETITIVE EXPERIMENTS HAVE BEEN PERFORMED UTILIZING UPGRADED MASS SPECTROMETERS. DESIGN, CONSTRUCT, AND EVALUATE THE MODIFIED GC/MS HARDWARE THAT WILL BE REQUIRED FOR LUNAR OPS SYSTEM TO MEET ALL REQUIRED PAYLOAD WEIGHT, AND POWER WHILE STILL MAINTAINING A FUNCTIONING FORM IN VARIOUS DESIRED ENVIRONMENTS. A 40 HOUR WORK WEEK IS ANTICIPATED FOR THE APPLICANT. THE VALUE OF THIS AWARD IS $229,004.00. THE UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA, (UCF) WILL CONTRIBUTE $65,000.00 OF MATCHING FUNDS AS PART OF THE PRE-EMINENT POST-DOCTORAL PROGRAM (P3) INVESTMENT AND THE REMAINING $164,004.00 WILL COME FROM NASA AGENCY FUNDS. DR. ROBERTO AGUILAR, WHO IS HIGHLY QUALIFIED IN THE FIELD OF MASS SPECTROSCOPY AND GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY, WILL BE PERFORMING THE WORK ASSOCIATED WITH THIS AWARD. DR. CHERIE YESTREBSKY, A DISTINGUISHED PEGASUS PROFESSOR, CHAIR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA'S CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT AND THE ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR INTEGRATED COASTAL RESEARCH, WILL BE HIS MENTOR. DR. AGUILAR WILL PERFORM THE MAJORITY OF THE TESTING DESIGN AND ANALYSIS AT THE KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, BUT WILL CONFER WITH DR. YESTREBSKY ON A REGULAR BASIS AT THE MAIN UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA CAMPUS IN ORLANDO, FLORIDA.