SBIR/STTR Research Award
Thermal Insulator for a Venus Lander
Award amount
$125,000Program and phase
SBIR · Phase IAward year
2017Award details
- Awarding agency
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Branch
- Not reported
- Recipient company
- TDA RESEARCH, INC.
- Proposal award date
- 2017-06-09
- Contract end date
- 2017-12-08
- UEI
- MK5ANJVWVZK7
- Solicitation number
- Not reported
- Topic code
- Z2.01
Research abstract
A lander on the surface of Venus is heated by the 460 C surface temperature, which, even with the best current designs using passive insulation, cause its electronics to fail in much less than a day. Active cooling concepts are not only exceedingly heavy but also exceedingly inefficient. TDA proposes a new insulation for the exterior of the lander that incorporates heat rejection mechanisms that apparently have not been previously considered for the Venus surface. Our insulation will make use of a flexible material that has been recently developed at TDA, and we will compare it to other potential but brittle insulations. Order-of-magnitude calculations suggest that the lifetime of the lander can be extended from hours to days.
Technology keywords
Not reported
Other awards by this recipient
Verified by the same UEI. These are other public SBIR/STTR award pages, not a merged company record.
- Corrosion and wear resistant coating for rotary engine seals and surfaces
- SBIR TOPIC 111, PHASE II: A COMPACT PORTABLE MEDICAL OXYGEN GENERATOR
- A Mobile Application for Prediction of Blast Overpressure Exposure in Civilian and Military Operations
- Low-Temperature Secondary Batteries for the Lunar Surface
- Lunar Surface Secondary Battery Modules for Continuous Day/Night Operation
Awards with the same topic code
Verified by an exact topic code match. This is not a text-similarity match.
- Modified Ionic Liquid-Based Phase Change Materials as Effective Heat Exchangers
- Variable Gas-Conductance Radiator: Lightweight, High Turndown Spacecraft Radiator
- Ultra-Lightweight MG Syntactic for Insulation in Extreme Environments
- Passive Set-Point Thermal Control Skin for Spacecraft
- High Lift Heat Pump
Research funding history
951 SBIR/STTR records share this UEI (1988–2026). Reported award amounts total $317,960,224. Reported amounts are not federal obligations.
Phases: Phase I, Phase II, Phase II – Direct to Phase II
Agencies: Department of Defense, Department of Energy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, National Science Foundation, Department of Health and Human Services