NASA SBIR 2005 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Creare Inc
P.O. Box 71
Hanover ,NH 03755 - 0071
(603) 643 - 3800

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Weibo   Chen
wbc@creare.com
P.O. Box 71
Hanover, NH  03755 -0071
(603) 643 - 3800

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Future missions to investigate the structure and evolution of the universe require highly efficient, low-temperature cryocoolers for low-noise detector systems. We propose to develop a highly efficient low-cost regenerator for regenerative cryocoolers with cooling temperatures in the range of 15 K and below. The proposed regenerator uses an innovative non-rare-earth material to achieve a volumetric specific heat of about 0.65 to 0.31 J/cm3-K at temperatures of 15 to 4.2 K. The large heat capacity will substantially reduce the thermal swing during periodic heat transfer and therefore improve the efficiency of low-temperature regenerative cryocoolers. The regenerator will be lightweight and easy to fabricate. In Phase I we will optimize the regenerator for a specific cooling application. We will use the resulting design and model to show that a regenerative cryocooler can achieve a very high efficiency. In Phase II we will build a prototype regenerator, measure its key performance parameters, and integrate it with an existing cryocooler to demonstrate its high thermal effectiveness.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The proposed regenerator can be used in cooling systems for space-borne science instrument operating at temperatures in the range of 10 K or below. Its superior thermal performance makes it especially suitable for the low-noise detector cooling systems for future observatory missions, such as the Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), Constellation-X (Con-X), and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The military applications for the proposed regenerator include cooling systems on space-based surveillance, missile detection, and missile tracking systems. Scientific applications include cooling systems for communication satellites; superconducting instruments, digital filters, and magnets; MRIs; and SQUIDs.

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

Fluid Storage and Handling Instrumentation