SBIR Phase I: Artificial Gravity Stabilization System for Space Habitats

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project enables an entirely new class of space habitat that will enable humans to live and work in space without endangering their health. In the near future, improvements in launch capability will radically increase the number of people traveling to space to take advantage of what can only be done in microgravity. These include researchers studying the next lifesaving medicine, workers manufacturing high-purity semiconductors for the next generation of computers, and tourists wanting to experience the freedom of space and the sight of Earth. These individuals share a common need: easy access to microgravity to fulfill their purpose of being in space while simultaneously not enduring significant health impacts from microgravity exposure; thus, both microgravity and artificial gravity need to be accessible in the same space habitat. Development of platforms such as these would help enable an acceleration of in-space R&D, along with supporting higher throughput of in-space experimentation and R&D. The solution is very large, expandable non-rotating space habitats, with an internal rotating centrifuge large enough for astronauts to live and work in when not needing microgravity. These centrifuges need an advanced stabilization system because as astronauts move around the centrifuge, the center-of-gravity shifts, which due to the rotation would induce a wobble. This SBIR Phase I project proposes to solve the stabilization problem while avoiding flaws of previously proposed approaches and is also applicable to traditional rotating space stations. The objective of this research is to build representative lab-scale prototypes of the stabilization system and develop a control system model to prove the efficacy of this stabilization system when at full scale. This includes capturing the responsiveness required for the system to stabilize human motion, such as walking, proving redundancy is present, and characterizing the overall impact centrifuge mass distribution has on the stabilization control system. Further prototypes will demonstrate its ability to package within an expandable habitat module, while additional analysis will quantify the cost benefits of designing a habitat incorporating a large internal centrifuge and stabilization system. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.