The Hawaii NASA EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Development Program: Year 4 Extension

The goal of the Hawaii NASA EPSCoR Program is to develop an academic research enterprise that is directed toward long-term, self-sustaining, nationally-competitive capabilities in aerospace and aerospace-related research. The Hawaii NASA EPSCoR Program supports a series of collaborative projects that will strengthen ties between the University of Hawaii system, NASA Centers in closest proximity to Hawaii, State and Federal agencies, and private industry. Hawaii underrepresented populations will be preferential recipients of support. The ORS-4 Mission launched unsuccessfully from Kauai on November 3, 2015. While the launcher rail worked perfectly, there was a problem with the Super-Strypi first stage motor and rocket shroud (The shroud was made of wood and delaminated in flight.) Nevertheless, there were numerous successes as a result of the ORS-4 Mission. The ORS-4 mission trained 130 students who helped to deliver the HiakaSat satellite according to US Air Force standards. HSFL, with NASA EPSCoR RID support, is working on a Big Island small launch vehicle (<300 kg to 500 km orbit) site that will handle solid-motor and liquid-engine vehicles. Six US small launch companies have expressed interest to launch from a Big Island site. The State of Hawaii has allocated $250K for the launch site Environmental Analysis and $8.5M for a Joint Manufacturing Center that will help with small launch vehicle and small satellite development. The EPSCoR jurisdiction director is involved with guiding both efforts. HSFL is working to get its 3-U CubeSat Neutron-1 launched on a NASA ELaNa mission to detect neutrons in space and demonstrate COSMOS flight and mission control software. HSFL has also received interest from Space Systems Loral and Sierra Nevada Corporation to test microsatellites in the HSFL I&T Facility. Finally, we will host the NASA Office of Small Business Technology Infusion Road Tour event on August 14-15, 2018 on the UH-Manoa campus. We are coordinating this event and inviting participants from the University of Hawaii system, University of Alaska, University of Guam, and other participating HBCU/MSI. We note that Guam now has their own EPSCoR program and are not part of this proposal. We continue to work closely with Guam as evidenced by Dr. Dilmurat Azimov's successful EPSCoR CAN proposal that involves Guam in UAV research.

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