Thermal Insulator for a Venus Lander

A lander on the surface of Venus is heated by the 460 C surface temperature, which, even with the best current designs using passive insulation, cause its electronics to fail in much less than a day. Active cooling concepts are not only exceedingly heavy but also exceedingly inefficient. TDA proposes a new insulation for the exterior of the lander that incorporates heat rejection mechanisms that apparently have not been previously considered for the Venus surface. Our insulation will make use of a flexible material that has been recently developed at TDA, and we will compare it to other potential but brittle insulations. Order-of-magnitude calculations suggest that the lifetime of the lander can be extended from hours to days.

The insulation is being designed for a Venus lander. In some sense, it is an enabling technology for a Venus lander, since surely the life expectancy of a mission must be substantially enhanced over the historical Pioneer and Venera probes in order for the mission to be funded. Even so, the materials and techniques developed during this project are potentially useful for a wide range of thermal protection systems (TPS), and could potentially be redesigned for use in applications such as (re-)entry heatshields, both deployable and static.

Thermal protection is also of substantial interest for a host of military applications, primarily including re-entry heatshields, rocket nozzles and internal insulation for solid rocket motor cases.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 3) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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.