SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
XL Scientific, LLC
6100 Uptown Boulevard Northeast, Suite 260
Albuquerque, NM 87110 - 4193
(505) 244-8502

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Paul Thelen
paul.thelen@xlscientific.com
6100 Uptown Boulevard Northeast, Suite 260
Albuquerque, NM 87110 - 4193
(505) 222-4915

CORPORATE/BUSINESS OFFICIAL (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Susan Haverland
susan.haverland@xlscientific.com
6100 Uptown Boulevard Northeast, Suite 260
Albuquerque, NM 87110 - 4193
(505) 244-8502

Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 4
End: 6

Technology Available (TAV) Subtopics
Radiation Shielding Technologies - Transport Codes is a Technology Available (TAV) subtopic that includes NASA Intellectual Property (IP). Do you plan to use the NASA IP under the award?
Yes

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
NASA uses computer aided design (CAD) capabilities to produce space vehicle designs. One aspect of the vehicle design is utilizing enough shielding to minimize dose on personnel. NASA CAD models inherit errors and issues during their inception that prevent them from being used with NASA?s radiation transport code, High Z and Energy Transport (HZETRN). XL Scientific developed a ray tracing tool to generate inputs for HZETRN, called the CAD Radiation Integration Tool (CRIT). This tool maintains material density and type, unlike any other existing capability. XL Scientific also developed methods of identifying and correcting common CAD errors. In phase II, XL Scientific will expand both CRIT and the CAD repair tools developed in Phase I. Functions will be added to CRIT to read STEP and DICOM file types. We will add interfaces for both HZETRN2015 as well as industry standard radiation transport code, Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP). MCNP is widely used in the nuclear community for radiation transport calculations and adding it to CRIT will expand commercialization options to the nuclear and healthcare industry. We will also automate the CAD repair tools developed in Phase I. Automation will allow users to correct common errors quickly and reduce the overall time spent repairing models. Furthermore, XL Scientific will add a sensitivity analysis option to investigate what effect model simplification has on radiation transport results. At the end of the Phase II effort, XL Scientific will have a tool to diagnose and repair CAD model quickly and provide robust radiation transport calculations. This innovation is anticipated to be of interest to government and commercial entities.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The NASA Durability, Damage Tolerance, & Reliability Branch has expressed a need for CRIT. One technical mission of this branch is in calculating the minimum shielding required for humans inside of spacecraft. CAD models used for these calculations can have numerous errors and require extensive time to repair. CRIT will allow users to rapidly repair models and run radiation transport calculations. The NASA Ames group has also expressed interest in using CRIT for their BioSentinel program. This mission will send a spacecraft past the ionization belt into an intense radiation environment. To meet the goals of this mission, the BioSentinel CubeSat must maximize radiation dose on a biomass payload while providing enough shielding to sensitive onboard electronics to complete the mission. Use of CRIT throughout the design process will aid in rapid design optimization. NASA Ames has mentioned that other missions in AES can benefit from our technology development as well.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
XL Scientific has found several organizations interested in CRIT. The Air Force Research Labs (AFRL) space vehicles directorate is interested in this tool to calculate radiation dose on critical components of their vehicles. Similar to NASA, AFRL has numerous CAD models that require repair before they can be simulated. CRIT will reduce the time spent on these repairs. AFRL is interested in calculating dose on electronics. Varian Medical Systems (VMS) is also interested in CRIT. VMS is a major company in nuclear medicine and develops the radiation transport code Attila. CRIT could be run or integrated with Attila to better support this business sector. Our team is in discussions with VMS for the potential of using them as a transition partner. Presbyterian MD Anderson cancer center could benefit from the dose calculations provided by CRIT. Outside of the government, the private space industry is a much larger group of customers that have a need for radiation calculations on payloads.