Sensors and Sample Processing for Ocean Worlds Life Detection

The Adv Materials Innovations team (AMI) will meet this challenge by leveraging its recent work on sensor technology and systems. Specific tasks for this work will be to achieve 1) Selection of commercially available COTS subsystems, 2) Optimize measurement sensitivity via artificial intelligence (AI),3) Reduced analyte identification time through deep learning algorithms. 4) Low data rate requirement using deep learning data reduction algorithms, 5) SWaP (size, weight and power) optimized sealed system with no moving parts.

The search for life on Ocean Worlds (e.g., Europa, Enceladus, Titan, etc.). Support of lunar and Mars exploration missions to detect water and organic materials. System flexibility enables repurposing for future missions.

Our initial estimates for sales volume is in the range of 1000’s of units per year, based on sales to the aerospace, refinery, pharmaceutical and chemical markets, where chemical sensors are a portion of this large market. The wearable health sensor market as a whole is shown in Figure 10. Out of this we have derived a $5 million market for our technology.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 3) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.