NASA SBIR 2007 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
FIRESTAR ENGINEERING, LLC
557 Burbank Street, Unit J
Broomfield, CO 80020 - 7160
(303) 439-2698

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
David Fisher
David@firestar-engineering.com
557 Burbank St., Unit J
Broomfield, CO 80020 - 7160
(303) 439-2698

Expected Technology Readiness Level (TRL) upon completion of contract: 4 to 5

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
Firestar Engineering has developed a set of Nitrous Oxide Fuel Blend monopropellants that are: 1) Non-toxic, 2) Specific Impulse> 310 s, 3) Freezing point < -77 C, 4) Self Pressurizing, and 5) Highly throttleable. A monopropellant with these characteristics and with bipropellant performance has the power to revolutionize both private and government space initiatives. Applications which will benefit from these monopropellant blends are wide spread and system level studies have indicated competitive overall performance with everything except cryogenic bipropellants.

Phase II efforts will concentrate on thruster development and monopropellant UN/DOT transportation classification. Thruster development will concentrate on a 25 lbf RCS thruster and performing a number of tests required for flight certification.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
Firestar has explored NOFB monopropellant use for a number of future NASA applications. We are currently exploring alternative architectures for the Altair Lunar Lander (as part of the Odyssey/Space X team) which uses a NOFB monopropellant ascent stage. Additionally, we have submitted a white paper on NOFB use for the Mars Science Orbiter. We believe that NOFB monopropellants can realistically compete with all non-cryogenic in propulsion alternatives for both manned and un-manned applications.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
A non-toxic monopropellant with bipropellant performance has the power to revolutionize in space propulsion. We believe that our NOFB monopropulsion systems will drastically reduce costs associated with in space propulsion. The toxicity of hydrazine, MMH, and NTO require high levels of recurring costs to qualify and maintain hardware. Additionally, contingency planning, containment, cleaning, and safety monitoring is a continual large overhead cost associated with hydrazine testing activities. In contrast, with NOFB monopropulsion systems we are able to rapidly test a large number of concepts with minimal ground support hardware which reduces costs in developing new hardware. A significant number of commercial aerospace companies have expressed an immediate interest in the development and flight qualification of NOFB monopropellant option s.

NASA's technology taxonomy has been developed by the SBIR-STTR program to disseminate awareness of proposed and awarded R/R&D in the agency. It is a listing of over 100 technologies, sorted into broad categories, of interest to NASA.

TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING

Chemical Cooling Energy Storage Feed System Components High Energy Propellants (Recombinant Energy & Metallic Hydrogen) Monopropellants Propellant Storage Reuseable