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Bradford Space, Inc.

$285,706

Total funding

3

Grants

Funding over time

peak $144.3K · FY2015–17

$200K$150K$100K$50K$0

'15

'16

'17

Funding mix

By agency

NASA$285,706 · 3

By mechanism

—$285,706 · 3

Investigators at Bradford Space, Inc.

Investigator-initiated All funding

Investigatorsi

Rising Stars

First grant in the last 5 yrs

Not enough data

Emerging Leaders

6–10 yrs in

Not enough data

All-Time

Most funded here, all years

Not enough data

Largest grants

WE PROPOSE THE DEVELOPMENT OF ASTROKIT.ORG AN ONLINE PRESENCE THAT PROVIDES SERVICES FOR BROWSING ASTEROID DATA AND TOOLS THAT SUPPORT ANALYSIS OF ASTEROID ASTROMETRY PHOTOMETRY AND SPECTROSCOPY. ASTROKIT WILL BE A SET OF FREE SOFTWARE TOOLS THAT EMPOWER CITIZEN SCIENTISTS TO EXPLORE ASTEROIDS AND USE SCIENTIFIC PROCESSES TO ANALYZEAND UNDERSTAND THEM.THE ASTROMETRY TOOLKIT WILL ALLOW USERS TO UPLOAD IMAGES AUTOMATICALLY LOCATE THEIR POSITION IN THE SKY AND MARK KNOWN CELESTIAL OBJECTS IN IMAGES WITH CIRCLES AND LABELS. IT WILL IDENTIFY MOVING OBJECTS BY OVERLAYING SEQUENTIAL IMAGES A TECHNIQUE KNOWN AS STACKING AND BLINKING. THE TOOLKIT WILL INCLUDE BATCH-UPLOAD AND API SUPPORT FOR LARGE GROUPS OF IMAGES.THE PHOTOMETRY TOOLKIT WILL ACCEPT INPUT FROM THE ASTROMETRY PROCESS AND ESTIMATE THE MAGNITUDE OF OBJECTS IN SKY IMAGERY USING REFERENCE STARS FROM STANDARD CATALOGS. IT WILL SUPPORT BATCH-UPLOAD AND AN API FOR LARGE GROUPS OF IMAGES.THE LIGHT CURVE TOOLKIT WILL ACCEPT PHOTOMETRIC VALUES AND DISPLAY INTERACTIVE LIGHT CURVES BASED ON THIS DATA. USERS WILL BE ABLE TO ADJUST THE INPUTS AND TUNE THEIR DERIVED LIGHT CURVES IN ORDER TO DETERMINE THE SPIN PERIOD OF AN ASTEROID. THE SITE WILL MAKE AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD THE ASTROMETRIC PHOTOMETRIC AND LIGHT CURVE DATA AS WELL AS A GRAPH OF OUTPUT.ASTROKIT WILL PROVIDE A VISUAL INTERFACE FOR PAST RESULTS THAT HAVE BEEN MARKED PUBLIC BY USERS ALONGSIDE OFFICIAL DATA FROM NASA JPL AND THE MINOR PLANET CENTER WITH A FOCUS ON NEAR EARTH OBJECTS (NEOS) AND POTENTIALLY HAZARDOUS ASTEROIDS (PHAS). USERS WILL BE ABLE TO SEARCH AND SELECT SPECIFIC ASTEROIDS FOR REFERENCE AS WELL AS TEXT-BASED SEARCH FUNCTIONALITY TO QUICKLY PULL INFORMATION FROM ADATABASE OF NEARLY 700 000 ASTEROIDS.METHODOLOGYTHE PLATFORM WILL RELY PRIMARILY ON BROWSER TECHNOLOGIES SUCH AS WEBGL WITH ALL USER ACTIONS SUPPORTED BY JAVASCRIPT ON AN HTML5/ CSS BASE. THE APPLICATIONS WILL BE RESPONSIVE SUPPORTING MOBILE WEB ACCESS OR EVEN REPACKAGING AS WEB-VIEW MOBILE APPS IN IOS AND ANDROID APP STORES. ASTROKIT WILL RELY HEAVILY ON OPEN SOURCE IN ITS CLIENT-SIDE RENDERING USING POPULAR LIBRARIES SUCH AS JQUERY THREE.JS AND KINETICJS. ITS SERVER WILL BE WRITTEN IN NODE.JS BACKED BY A POSTGRESQL DATABASE. THE IMAGE PROCESSING ANALYSIS TOOLS WILL RELY ON FAST GEOMETRIC HASHING FOR ASTROMETRY AND POPULAR IMAGE DIFFING ALGORITHMS FOR STACKING AND BLINKING.RELEVANCE TO CADET AND NASAOUR TEAM HAS EXPERIENCE DEVELOPING INTERACTIVE ASTRONOMY WEBSITES VISITED BY MILLIONS OF PEOPLE INCLUDING THE DEVELOPMENT OF ASTEROID-RELATED TOOLS FOR CITIZEN SCIENTISTS. PROVIDING PUBLICLY AVAILABLE AND EASY-TO-USE ASTEROID DATA AND ANALYSIS TOOLS INCREASES THE VISIBILITY AND REACH OF NASA AND ITS ASTEROID GRAND CHALLENGE EFFORTS. THE CAPABILITIES WE DEVELOP FOR ASTROKIT ARE EXPECTED TO HAVE SIMILAR IMPACT AS OUR PREVIOUS PROJECTS NOT ONLY AS A RESOURCE FOR CITIZEN SCIENTISTS BUT ALSO FOR THE MEDIA AND GENERAL PUBLIC AS A RESOURCE FOR SCIENTIFIC DATA ON ASTEROIDS.THE DEVELOPMENT OF A VIRTUAL ASTEROID ANALYSIS TOOLKIT WILL ENCOURAGE CITIZEN SCIENTISTS AND AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS TO PUT THEIR DATA ONLINE AND SHARE IT EASILY WITH OTHERS IN THE FIELD. MODERN WEB-BASED ASTRONOMY TOOLS THAT APPLY BEST DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT PRACTICES ARE RARE. ASTROKIT.ORG WILL SIGNIFICANTLY ADVANCE THE AVAILABILITY AND EASE OF ANALYSIS RELATED TO ASTEROID OBSERVATION AND DISCOVERY.$144,310

· FY2016 · National Aeronautics and Space Administration

MANY DEEP-SPACE MISSIONS ESPECIALLY THOSE THAT RETURN MATERIAL OR CREWS TO NEAR-EARTH SPACE ARE SEVERELY LIMITED BY THE NEED TO CARRY PROPELLANTS AND HEAT SHIELDS TO ACHIEVE THEIR MISSION GOALS. LIFTING THESE ASSETS FROM THE SURFACE OF EARTH LANDING THEM ON THE TARGET BODY LAUNCHING THEM FROM THERE INTO AN EARTH-INTERCEPT TRAJECTORY AND CAPTURING THEM INTO EARTH ORBIT REQUIRES EARTH LAUNCH OF MASSES OF PROPELLANT THAT INCREASE EXPONENTIALLY WITH THE MISSION'S TOTAL DELTA V REQUIREMENT. PRELIMINARY STUDIES OF THE LOGISTICS OF GATHERING MATERIAL FROM THE MOON AND SELECTED NEAR-EARTH ASTEROIDS (NEAS) HAVE DEMONSTRATED VERY LARGE ENHANCEMENTS OF MASS-RETRIEVAL CAPABILITIES USING PROPELLANTS DERIVED FROM SOURCES IN SPACE RATHER THAN PROPELLANTS LAUNCHED FROM EARTH AND CARRIED THROUGHOUT THE MISSION. THEY ALSO HAVE CLEARLY SHOWN THE ENORMOUS ADVANTAGES INHERENT IN DERIVING PROPELLANTS FROM NEAS. THIS STUDY EXAMINES WATER-BASED PROPULSION USING NEA VOLATILES TO MANUFACTURE STORABLE CHEMICAL PROPELLANTS. THE PROBLEM OF STORABLE PROPELLANTS ON EARTH HAS BEEN SOLVED BY THE USE OF HYDRAZINE DERIVATIVES AS FUEL AND N2O4 AS OXIDIZER BOTH MADE POSSIBLE BY EARTH'S NITROGEN-RICH ATMOSPHERE. NITROGEN IS SCARCE ON ASTEROIDS AND WOULD BE BEST DEVOTED TO CREATING FIRE-RETARDANT ATMOSPHERES FOR CREWS. THERE ARE PLAUSIBLE PATHS KNOWN FOR MAKING ASTEROID-DERIVED CARBON-BASED STORABLE FUELS BUT THE PROVENANCE OF A SUITABLE STORABLE OXIDIZING AGENT THAT DOES NOT EMPLOY NITROGEN IS AN UNSOLVED AND DIFFICULT PROBLEM.$99,736

· FY2015 · National Aeronautics and Space Administration

THE TWO FUNDAMENTAL PREREQUISITES FOR LARGE-SCALE ECONOMIC USE OF SPACE RESOURCES ARE: IN-SPACE MANUFACTURE OF PROPELLANTS FROM NONTERRESTRIAL BODIES AND IN-SPACE MANUFACTURE OF HEAT SHIELDS FOR LOW-COST CAPTURE OF MATERIALS INTO EARTH ORBIT. THE FORMER HAS BEEN THE SUBJECT OF RECENT NIAC INVESTIGATIONS. THE LATTER WOULD EXPAND BY A FACTOR OF 30 TO 100 TIME THE NUMBER OF ASTEROIDS FROM WHICH RESOURCES COULD BE RETURNED COST-EFFECTIVELY TO EARTH ORBIT. WITH VASTLY LARGER POPULATIONS FROM WHICH TO CHOOSE RETURN OPPORTUNITIES WILL BE MUCH MORE FREQUENT AND TARGETS CAN BE SELECTED WHERE OPERATIONS WOULD BE HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE NOT MERELY SUFFICIENT. THE FEEDSTOCKS FOR MANUFACTURE OF LIFE-SUPPORT MATERIALS AND PROPELLANTS ARE FOUND ON C-TYPE NEAR-EARTH ASTEROIDS WHICH HAVE HIGH CONCENTRATIONS OF HYDROGEN CARBON NITROGEN OXYGEN AND SULFUR. THE TOTAL ABUNDANCE OF READILY EXTRACTABLE (HCNOS) VOLATILES IN THECI CHONDRITIC METEORITE PARENT BODIES (C ASTEROIDS) IS ROUGHLY 40% OF THE TOTAL METEORITE MASS. FURTHER THE RESIDUE FROM EXTRACTION OF VOLATILES INCLUDES A MIX OF METALLIC IRON (10% OF TOTAL MASS) IRON OXIDE AND IRON SULPHIDES (20% AS FE) PLUS 1% NI AND ~0.1% CO.WE PROPOSE TO USE MICROWAVE HEATING TO 1) EXPEDITE SELECTIVE RELEASE OF H2O VAPOR FROM HEATED C ASTEROID SOLIDS AND 2) SINTER HIGHLY OUTGASSED REFRACTORY ASTEROIDAL MATERIAL TO MAKE HEAT SHIELDS FOR AEROCAPTURE AT EARTH RETURN. WE WILL STUDY BOTH PROCESSES EXPERIMENTALLY USING C-TYPE ASTEROID SIMULANT MADE BY DEEP SPACE INDUSTRIES UNDER CONTRACT WITH NASA AND STUDY THE LOGISTICS OF RETRIEVAL OF ASTEROID MATERIALS TO EARTH ORBIT USING THESE AEROBRAKES. THE RESULT WILL BE A UNIQUELY PROPELLANT-RICH DEEP SPACE EXPLORATION ARCHITECTURE WITH FASTER TIMETABLES ENABLED BY THE GREATER ENGINEERING AND SAFETY MARGINS ALLOWED BY ABUNDANT PROPELLANT.$41,660

· FY2017 · National Aeronautics and Space Administration