Magnetic-nozzle Arcjet eXperiments for Wall-loading, Erosion, and Lifetime Limits (MAXWELL)

AIVFC targets rising operations costs for productive but aging missions (e.g., IRIS) that depend on legacy ground systems with low autonomy—driving high staffing, time-consuming alert handling, and training burden. By introducing an LLM-enabled “virtual flight controller,” AIVFC reduces operator workload, accelerates anomaly response, and lowers overall mission operations cost. The architecture is modular and extensible, enabling reuse across other legacy missions with similar infrastructure (e.g., BioSentinel), scaling savings without ground-up redevelopment.

The return on investment for this IRAD is realized through enhanced capability, reduced operational downtime, and improved utilization of existing NASA assets. Evaluating a non-contact nozzle addresses erosion-driven operational limits, repeatability degradation, and rigidity associated with fixed hardware configurations. The resulting improvements (higher-quality datasets, more adaptable test campaigns, and increased confidence in data used for material qualification and model validation) provide durable value independent of scalable deployment. 

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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