Federal award (DEFINITIVE CONTRACT, fiscal year 2024)
Recipient: BRIMROSE TECHNOLOGY CORP
Awarding agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration / National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Funding agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration / National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Period of performance: 2019-05-09 to 2025-05-01
Current total value of award: $3317448
Description: NASA AMES RESEARCH CENTER HAS BEEN COLLABORATING WITH BRIMROSE TO DEVELOP A SMALL, LOW-POWER POINT SPECTROMETER TO BE INCLUDED INTO THE NEAR INFRARED VOLATILES SPECTROMETER (NIRVSS) INSTRUMENT. THROUGH AN STTR CONTRACT, BRIMROSE SUCCESSFULLY DEVELOPED A DUAL-CHANNEL ACOUSTO-OPTIC TUNABLE FILTERS (AOTF) SPECTROMETER THAT OPERATES ACROSS 1300 AND 4000NM. AN AOTF IS AN ALL SOLID-STATE, TUNABLE FILTER WITH NO MOVING PARTS. THE AOTF IS A HIGH THROUGHPUT AND HIGH-SPEED, PROGRAMMABLE DEVICE CAPABLE OF ACCESSING WAVELENGTHS AT RATES OF 100 KHZ. INITIAL WORK HAS BEEN CONDUCTED VIA A SBIR PHASE III TO DEMONSTRATE THE AOTF SPECTROMETER WOULD HAVE SUFFICIENT PERFORMANCE TO MEET INSTRUMENT MEASUREMENT REQUIREMENTS. FOLLOWING THIS DEMONSTRATION, PRELIMINARY DESIGN WORK WAS BEGUN WITH BRIMROSE AS PART OF THE CURRENT PHASE II-X STTR CONTRACT. THIS WORK LEAD TO THE DELIVERY OF A FULLY FUNCTIONAL SPECTROMETER ENGINEERING TEST UNIT (ETU) THAT IS VERY FLIGHT-FORWARD IN DESIGN. THIS ETU HAS BECOME THE BASELINE SPECTROMETER FOR THE NIRVSS INSTRUMENT. ALSO PART OF THIS PHASE III EFFORT WAS THE DEVELOPMENT OF A BIFURCATED MULTI-FIBER OPTICAL FIBER CABLE WHICH INTEGRATES THE SPECTROMETER TO THE NIRVSS OBSERVATION BRACKET ASSEMBLY. BRIMROSE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR BOTH THE SPECTROMETER AND THE BIFURCATED OPTICAL FIBER CABLE. THE NIRVSS INSTRUMENT WAS SELECTED AS A SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DEMONSTRATION PAYLOAD VIA THE NASA PROVIDED LUNAR PAYLOAD (NPLP) DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM TO FLY TO THE MOON USING U.S. COMMERCIAL LANDING DELIVERY SERVICES (CLPS). THE CLPS FLIGHT UNIT FOR THIS PROGRAM IS TO BE DELIVERED IN LATE SPRING, 2020. ACCOMMODATION OF THE NIRVSS INSTRUMENT ONTO CLPS LUNAR LANDED SERVICE PROVIDERS WILL OCCUR ONCE THE LANDER PROVIDERS ARE SELECTED (EXPECTED MAY, 2019). THIS SOW DESCRIBES THE NECESSARY TASKS AND DELIVERABLES IN SUPPORT OF THE CLPS FLIGHT UNIT. AS PART OF THIS ACCOMMODATION THE EXACT DIMENSIONS OF THE BIFURCATED MULTI-FIBER OPTICAL FIBER CABLE WILL BE DEFINED. THEREFORE, A LATER SOW MODIFICATION IS ANTICIPATED ONCE THESE DIMENSIONS ARE DEFINED.