NASA SBIR 2012 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
ROCCOR, LLC
686 S. Taylor Ave, Ste. 108
Louisville, CO 80027 - 3000
(720) 300-8167

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
William Francis
will.francis@roccor.com
686 S. Taylor Ave, Ste. 108
Louisville, CO 80027 - 3000
(303) 587-7467

CORPORATE/BUSINESS OFFICIAL (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Douglas Campbell
doug.campbell@roccor.com
686 S. Taylor Ave, Ste. 108
Louisville, CO 80027 - 3000
(720) 300-8167

Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 4

Technology Available (TAV) Subtopics
Precision Deployable Optical Structures and Metrology is a Technology Available (TAV) subtopic that includes NASA Intellectual Property (IP). Do you plan to use the NASA IP under the award?
No

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
Roccor, LLC, propose the development of a highly novel and structurally efficient outrigger strut design feature that efficiently integrates with a large deployable starshade or, occulter, currently under development by NASA-JPL. The starshade acts as an external occulter to suppress the incoming starlight sufficiently for detecting and characterizing exoplanets. Key to the performance of the occulter is achieving sufficiently high out-of-plane stiffness to withstand maneuvering loads as well as meet the shape-tolerance requirement. Roccor's proposed effort utilizes a highly novel deployable outrigger system that seamlessly integrates into the current deployable occulter design. Further, Roccor's approach leverages our considerable background in elastically stowed and deployed composite structures.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The primary near-term NASA target for the proposed deployable outrigger system is the deployable occulter currently under development by NASA-JPL. Beyond this mission, however, the proposed technology provides considerable advancement in the area of elastically stowed and deployed composite structural elements. Thus, the results of this SBIR program could transition into other space deployable applications include solar arrays, solar sails, sun shields, booms, antennas, etc. that are based, in part, on the use of composite structural elements.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The proposed composite deployable structure technology could see use in within the broader military and commercial spacecraft market by contributing to the development of other deployable apertures for satellites (e.g., solar arrays, booms, antennas, etc.). Terrestrial applications for the proposed technology include deployable shelters (e.g., tents, shades, etc.) for military and consumer markets and portable, man-packable antennas for military personnel.

TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING (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.)

Composites Deployment Filtering Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation) Optical Prototyping Spacecraft Design, Construction, Testing, & Performance (see also Engineering; Testing & Evaluation) Structures Telescope Arrays