Flexible Variable Emission Material

Thermal management is an enduring need for all space platforms and vehicles. Spacecraft are routinely exposed to extreme temperature fluctuations, and options for regulating temperature in the vacuum of space are limited and challenging. To address temperature fluctuations, heaters have traditionally been utilized for maintaining warmth of sensitive electronics. These battery-operated heaters significantly increase the craft’s weight and power usage. Conversely, radiators and reflectors are used to dissipate waste heat and reject thermal loading, respectively, to prevent platform overheating. Depending on mission lifecycle, orbit, and whether the mission is manned or unmanned, the respective ranges of environmental conditions will vary greatly as will the crafts survivability standards. Tailorable and variable thermal management systems are therefore vital to the success of next generation space exploration. To address this issue, Plasmonics Inc. proposes to develop a new class of mission-tailorable, and autoregulating, thermal radiator coatings by leveraging its extensive experience in growing vanadium dioxide (VO2) on flexible substrates. VO2 has been investigated for use in variable emittance regulators in the past; however, in all cases the processing requirements appear to be incompatible with space craft radiator materials. Accordingly, Plasmonics Inc. proposes to design, model, fabricate, and test a range of tungsten-doped vanadium dioxide-base (WxV1-xO2)- variable emissivity materials (VEM). Various concentrations of W will be explored to evaluate its effect on transition temperature and VEM thermal emissivity. After design optimization and testing, the team will fabricate a VEM prototype on flight-certified flexible substrate such as Kapton. Demonstration of a successful flexible VEM this technology can be applied to a wide range of markets with the commercial satellite and smart glass as the most promising.

NASA has an enduring requirement to reduce mass, volume, and power of a thermal control system in the next generation of robotic and human-class spacecraft and to enable long-term missions to the moon and Mars. The current state of the art in thermal control systems is vehicle power and mass impact of greater than 25 to 30% due to old technologies still in use. Furthermore, as missions become more variable, the need for intelligent design and control within the thermal control system becomes more valuable. Additionally, science payloads will continue to decrease in size, increase in power, and require precise temperature control, all of which cannot be readily provided by traditional thermal control methods due to vehicle-level impacts of overall performance, mass/volume, and power. The proposed VEM addresses all these issues. The flexible form factor allows for incorporation into irregular surfaces without significant increase in mass. The adaptive radiative properties allow for use in extreme environments where surfaces will need to switch from radiative to insulating. As a decal, the surface is quick to integrate and can be readily removed for repair or replacement prior to launch. The multi-layer structure allows integration of additional capabilities such as rf transparency (for integration on antenna structures) or dust mitigation components. The proposed technology is well suited for small satellites (or cube sats) and climate-change mitigation. The market size for small satellites is modest, but growing. Markets and Markets places the current market size at $7.1B by 2025. The proposed radiator technology would be highly desirable in the market due to the resulting reduction in weight and power usage. The team is already working with three satellite manufactures to provide evaluation samples. Climate change is a critical concern in both the United States and the world abroad. Consequently, there is a significant interest in developing smart material technologies that will reduce the consumption of fossil fuel resources. One efficient way of reducing energy consumption is the development of passive, adaptive coatings that dissipate heat at high temperatures while providing insulation under cooler conditions. VEMs are candidate materials for this type of adaptive behavior since these films can transition from an insulating state at low temperatures to a thermally conductive state at higher temperatures. This allows for a surface that traps heat in the building when it is cold outside, but allows for heat transfer and thermal emission when it is hot outside and the inside is being cooled. The proposed thermal management coating is therefore applicable across multiple economic sectors and industries. According to Markets and Markets, the global smart glass market is expected to be worth $9.54 billion by 2029. This represents a compound annual growth rate of 9.8%. The energy efficient buildings market is projected to grow to $208 billion by 2032, which represents a compound annual growth rate of 5.93%. And while, our smart coatings are applicable to all segments of the market, it is the commercial segment that dominated, accounting for 47%.

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.