Advance Aerosol Separator for Planetary Exploration

IDS has received New Mexico State funding to enhance the impact of the Phase II project received from NASA. IDS would like to leverage the NM State Investment of $100k to have additional funding from the NASA Phase II-e that would be used to further develop the Advance Aerosol Separator for Planetary Exploration. During the Phase II project IDS has demonstrated that original concept proposed for the Phase II project is viable and works as expected. The aerosol sampler is able to collimate and and project the collimated aerosol beam a distance of 18 cm with a focused spot size at 18cm of approximately 2 mm. This allows the aerosol to be collected in the heater to be evaporated for spectroscopic analysis. In addition, IDS has been able to demonstrate that sulfuric acid aerosol particles with a concentration of approximately 95% can be passed through the aerosol separator without issue. The new effort would focus on completing the fabrication and testing of a new aerosol separator chamber the is

The aerosol separator (AS) will enable measurement of the aerosol particle composition suspended in a wide variety of planetary atmospheres including atmospheres where previously overwhelming amounts of gas prevented aerosol particulate analysis. The adaptive AS will continue to operate at optimal transmission despite changes in the outside pressure by controlling the conductance of the piezoelectric aperture. The AS will enable aerial platform mission to Venus, Mars and Titan as well as shallow entry probes to Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Development of the NanoJet particle separator will impact IDS' current aerosol printer business by allowing IDS to further develop the aerosol concentrator technology that is key to IDS' industrial print business. IA derivative development is to provide high transmission aerosol separators for use in commercial analytical equipment where aerosols are analyzed for gas composition analysis.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — 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.

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