Trash to Gas: Trash Preparation and Feed Mechanism

Completed TRL 3 (started at 2, targeting 3)

Description

An initial technology trade will take place between the KSC microgravity Trash to Gas system, OSCAR, along with the Phase 2 SBIR Pioneer Astronautics steam reforming technology and the 2019 global crowdsourcing technologies. The Pioneer Astronautics Phase 2 SBIR is scheduled to end in 2020 and hardware and concept delivery will be sent to KSC as KSC is the COR (Contracting officer representative) for this work. Next, the team will review, in more scrutiny, the engineering design and formulate a concept for the astronaut trash receptacle and the trash shredder into the hot reactor trash zone for Task 2 and Task 3.

Benefits

This FY21 project aims to develop technology to prepare waste for processing in a Trash-to-Gas (TtG) reactor. The work will advance the current state of the art, which includes a microgravity demonstrated trash injection system on a suborbital flight payload OSCAR (Orbital Syngas Commodity Augmentation Reactor (2020 and 2021)) and leverage commercial and public technology development from NASA SBIR Phase 2 (2020) and NASA funded global crowdsourcing efforts (2019).

Details

Technology area	Human Health, Life Support, and Habitation Systems > Environmental Control and Life Support Systems and Habitation Systems
Program	Center Innovation Fund: KSC CIF (KSC CIF)
Lead organization	Kennedy Space Center, Kennedy Space Center, FL
Start date	2020-10-01
End date	2021-09-30

Project contacts

Listed on TechPort itself — the most direct way to ask about this specific project.

Ray P Pitts — ray.p.pitts@nasa.gov

How to get involved

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.