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Completed TRL 5 (started at 3, targeting 5)
Project Description & Objectives
Crew displays are essential to successful human spaceflight missions and the centerpiece of the crew’s interface to spacecraft systems, providing access to critical mission data, robotics, emergency response tools, training, and other assets. However, Artemis spacecraft designers are paying high penalties in power, mass, crew time, and dollars to produce display systems with sub-par performance and unquantified risk. As NASA makes plans for long duration missions beyond LEO, NASA and industry partners do not have the information or technologies required to implement displays with known reliability in the radiation environment.
This project will take foundational steps towards the production of radiation-tolerant displays for sustained human spaceflight missions beyond LEO. The early career team will first characterize the radiation performance of the most promising commercially available display panel technologies. This information, along with a failure modes analysis, analysis of mission environments, and mission performance needs, will be integrated into a Radiation-tolerant Displays Body of Knowledge. With the mentorship of NASA experts in radiation, electronic parts, computer human interface design, and programmatics, the team will also establish a detailed display element gap assessment, architecture recommendations, and preliminary roadmap to radiation-hardening. These efforts will be aimed at transferring knowledge to industry and focusing NASA investments to spur technology advancement in this complex technical and manufacturing domain.
Project Importance & Tier 1 Gaps Addressed
The display architectures in use on ISS, in qualification testing for Orion, and in design for Gateway cannot meet the radiation performance requirements and mission constraints for NASA’s long duration human spaceflight missions. Focused efforts are needed today to establish the knowledge and advance the technologies that will make displays for these future missions possible. This enabling technology has been recognized in a Tier 1 M2M Knowledge Gap that this project will seek to close: 02-02 Radiation-tolerant Displays.
Technology Infusion & Innovation Approach
The complexity of display technologies and manufacturing processes necessitates industry leadership in developing radiation-tolerant display technologies. This project is designed to reduce risk and uncertainty for industry partners to pursue these capabilities and to leverage NASA’s SBIR/STTR programs to meet NASA’s display technology needs.
Test data and the radiation-tolerant displays Body of Knowledge (BoK) produced by this proposal will allow the early career team to inform and leverage NASA’s small business programs by transferring knowledge to industry, focusing NASA and industry investments, and spurring radiation-tolerant display technology development. The team will also maintain relationships with Computer Human Interface (CHI) System Managers within NASA programs to ensure technology pursuits are aligned with program needs, and industry capabilities are visible to spacecraft display designers.
Major Milestones
FY22, Q1
FY22, Q2
FY22, Q3
FY22, Q4
FY23, Q1
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