Optical Ethylene Sensor for Plant Health, Phase I

Future long-duration manned space flights will rely upon onboard production facilities to grow and produce food throughout the mission. Because the lives of the mission participants will depend upon successful agricultural and horticultural practices, it is imperative to provide them with sophisticated diagnostic tools with which to assure success. Continuous real-time monitoring of gaseous species in the ambient environment is required. There are several gases vital to this application including ethylene, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. Vista Photonics proposes to develop a rugged, real-time, 15 parts-per-billion (ppb) gaseous ethylene analyzer, ultimately compatible with space flight. The sensor technology developed on this project will be further capable of high-performance detection of additional trace gases including moisture and plant respiratory oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Potential NASA Commercial Applications: Contaminant monitoring in process gas streams in the chemical and microelectronics industries. Medical diagnosis through detection of biogenic gases in human breath that correlate to specific pathologies. Environmental monitoring and regulatory compliance in agriculture, power production, and occupational safety.

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.