FY18 Alabama NASA EPSCoR Rapid Response: Development of Fiber-Optic High-Temperature Heat Flux Sensors for Venus Exploration

The following technical proposal is submitted in response to the current call by NASA SMD Planetary Division for “High-Temperature Subsystems and Components for Long-Duration (months) Surface Operations” on the planet Venus. The problem at hand is how to maximize the survivability of sensors, electronics and other components on future Venus surface landers under the extreme Venus ambient (~500 °C, 90 earth atm, highly acidic atmosphere, etc). Among the many challenges faced by potential long-duration landed missions, the most prominent one is maintaining the operation of on-board instruments with minimal or no active thermal control for extended periods [1]. These so-called “mid-term” missions are primarily designed to investigate geophysical properties of Venus such as heat flow, seismology, and geodesy. They require pertinent sensors and the associated subsystems to be able to withstand the severe temperature on Venus surface for weeks or even months. This sets up the context of the current proposal. The objective of the proposed research is to develop a fiber-optic heat flux sensor (HFS) that is able to operate at an ambient temperature as high as 500 °C with a 10-mW/m2 heat flux sensitivity. The innovation of the work is three-fold: a) There has been very little prior research on fiber-optic HFS, so the intended work represents a new concept in heat flux sensing. b) Unlike traditional optical fiber thermal sensors, the new design uses gold-coated high temperature fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) as the sensing elements, which can withstand temperatures above 500 °C. c) To improve the survivability of the interrogation-detection system under extreme conditions, an innovative scheme based on FBG wavelength discriminators is proposed, which allows the use of broadband light sources (e.g., LED) and direct power measurement.

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.

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