High Performance Programmable Transceiver, Phase I

Space-to-ground communications have long been stuck in a prehistoric era of telemetry systems from the throughput and hardware availability perspective. From the throughput perspective, there has been an increased need in higher uplink and downlink rates for on-orbit operations. On the hardware side, long lead, single channel radios have been a programmatic nightmare to acquire and more and more problematic to operate given the frequency crowding. This study proposes a modern architecture based transceiver that comes to provide one integrated solution to all these issues. This proposal will design demonstrate a transceiver which can operate on both SGLS and USB uplinks and be fully frequency and mode programmable both during integration, and on the fly. In addition it will offer selectable channels for various mission profiles. Last but most important, it will use spectrally efficient modulation formats to enable high speed uplinks and support advanced communications protocols.

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.