DiSCO: Dual In-Situ Spectroscopy and Coring

In Phase II E we are transitioning our breakthrough DISCO technology developed in Phase II to discover cleantech minerals—the rare earths and exotic metals we really need to decarbonize the world—in the seafloor of the US Exclusion Economic Zone (EEZ) that is 10x faster and one magnitude lower in costs than the state-of-the-art technology available today. By discovering these marine cleantech minerals faster and at lower cost, we will have a meaningful impact in Green House Gas (GHG) reductions at a global scale. In Phase II-E we will transition the technology developed under Phase II from a TRL6 laboratory standalone technology tested under relevant conditions into an Engineering Model subsystem which will be integrated into a sea exploration instrument called VIPER designed for BOEM for the deployment to the ocean floor. The integrated instrument, inclusive of the DISCO EM subsystem is expected to therefore reach a TRL of 7. The EM model that is currently being designed under the Phase II will be slightly modified to fit the needs of the BOEM VIPER instrument, then built, integrated, and tested under relevant conditions. The VIPER instrument can then be deployed by BOEM to the ocean floor on an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) for scientific exploration and validation purposes after a further $500K in investment expected from BOEM. After successful deployment and verification of the hardware in the ocean, the DISCO technology will have successfully transitioned into a commercially viable instrument, which can then be further improved with autonomous machine learning algorithms as mentioned in the commercialization plan, to further strengthen the value to cost ratio and hence the commercial viability of the technology.

This technology can be applied to future NASA missions for planetary explorations of Mars and the Moon for the identification of elements and minerals for in-situ resource utilization.

BOEM is developing this technology together with Impossible Sensing for the exploration and mapping of the ocean floor for Rare Earth Elements. Now more than ever with the uncertainty of REE supplies from Russia in question, the US and particular the BOEM is looking to secure future REE for the production of new green energy.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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.