Stratospheric Deployment Parafoil, Phase I

The Stratospheric Deployment Parafoil is a proposed technology that will be designed and tested to provide a greatly superior parachute precision delivery system under thin atmosphere conditions, including Mars entry. Current systems incorporate a parachute which lacks the controllability necessary for precision landing. The non-controllable parachutes act only as a delivery system but afford no way to direct the parachute descent. The new technology will eliminate the uncontrollable system and, rather than using a round parachute variant, will have a high L/D parafoil capable of precision control and landing. This controllable parafoil will have a multistage deployment sequence which will accomplish high speed, even supersonic parachute deployment with the parachute in a reefed condition. The first stage of the deployment will approximate a conical ribbon parachute which will slow the system to subsonic speeds. Once the system has slowed sufficiently, subsequent stages of the deployment will transition the non-controllable parachute to a fully controllable, precision-landing parafoil.

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.