NASA SBIR 2009 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Space Photonics Inc
700 West 20th Street
Fayetteville, AR 72701 - 7175
(479) 856-6367

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Matthew Leftwich
mleftwich@spacephotonics.com
700 West 20th Street
Fayetteville, AR 72701 - 7175
(479) 856-6367

Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 1
End: 4

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
The proposed Phase I objectives and work plan, carried through to completion, will result in the development of a RAD-tolerant, high-speed, multi-channel fiber optics transceiver, associated reconfigurable intelligent node communications architecture, and supporting hardware for intra-vehicular and ground-based optical networking applications with data rates exceeding 3.2Gbps per channel. The goals of this proposed program are perfectly in-line with the subtopic goals, which are to: "(1) develop high-performance processors and memory architectures and reliable electronic systems, and (2) develop an avionics architecture that is flexible, scalable, extensible, adaptable, and reusable." "The subtopic objective is to elicit novel architectural concepts and component technologies that are realistic and operate effectively and credibly in environments consistent with the future NASA Science missions."

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
Applicable systems include intra-satellites, intra-spacecraft, lander and rover optical networking, in addition to lunar and Martian surface communications (each node being linked by either a ruggedized fiber optic cable designed for space flight or linked by harsh-environment deployable, miniaturized, free-space laser communications tri-pods being developed concurrently at Space Photnoics, Inc.).

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
Applicable commercial systems would likely take the form of highly secure, low-power optical networks for harsh terrestrial environments and/or when highly secure and redundant networking system architectures are required,e.g. high-end, rapidly deployable optical networking w/i buildings, municipalities, etc.

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

Architectures and Networks Autonomous Control and Monitoring Data Acquisition and End-to-End-Management Data Input/Output Devices Highly-Reconfigurable Laser On-Board Computing and Data Management Photonics Radiation-Hard/Resistant Electronics