NASA SBIR 2014 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Honeybee Robotics Ltd.
P.O. Box 27420
Brooklyn, NY 11202 - 7420
(646) 459-7809

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Kris Zacny
zacny@honeybeerobotics.com
398 W Washington Blvd suite 200
Pasadena, CA 91103 - 2000
(510) 207-4555

CORPORATE/BUSINESS OFFICIAL (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Chris Chapman
chapman@honeybeerobotics.com
P O Box 27420
Brooklyn, NY 11202 - 7420
(626) 459-7809

Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 5

Technology Available (TAV) Subtopics
Extreme Environments Technology 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)
Under Phase 1, we investigated HT Drill, HT Trencher, and Pneumatic Sample Delivery. We found that HT Trencher and Blower-based pneumatic system won't be feasible or carried high risk associated with development of HT cutter materials. Rotary drill also did not penetrate hard rocks.
For Phase 2, we propose HT Rotary-Percussive drill and 'suction' based pneumatic sample delivery.
Honeybee is also submitting a separate Phase 2 for 3 DOF HT arm. If that proposal gets selected, the arm will deploy the drill and deposit the sample. The pneumatic system would still be needed to move the sample into an instrument.
We plan to design and build TRL 5 system and incorporate HT motors developed by Honeybee under prior SBIR projects. The demonstration will be done in a HT chamber. We will investigate possibility of testing at NASA JPL's Venus chamber. The demo will include drilling into hard rocks and sample transfer to a mock up instrument.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The HT drill and sample transfer system would be used on New Frontiers Venus (Venus In Situ Explorer) mission. Missions to other planetary bodies with atmospheres (Titan, Mars) could also benefit this technology.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The HT technology is required for geothermal drilling applications as well as in Oil and Gas industry where wells are deeper and in much hotter regions (300 C and more).
The small, robust sampling systems could also be used in hazardous locations (e.g. concrete samples from nuclear reactors or soil samples from chemical spills, and volcanos).