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By NASA
1 Min Read Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR)
The SBIR/STTR programs provide an opportunity for small, high technology companies and research institutions (RI) to participate in Government sponsored research and development (R&D) efforts in key technology areas. NASA SBIR Phase I contracts have a period of performance for 6 months with a maximum funding of $125,000, and Phase II contracts have a period of performance up to 24 months with a maximum funding of $750,000. The STTR Phase I contracts last for 13 months with a maximum funding of $125,000, and Phase II contracts last for 24 months with the maximum contract value of $750,000.
SBIR/STTR Status Search
SBIR.NASA.GOV Home Page
SBIR/STTR Extension Request Form
SBIR/STTR Electronic Handbook
SBA – SBIR/STTR Policy Directive
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
A Boeing 777-300ER aircraft is being inspected by one of Near Earth Autonomy’s drones Feb. 2, 2024, at an Emirates Airlines facility in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.Near Earth Autonomy A small business called Near Earth Autonomy developed a time-saving solution using drones for pre-flight checks of commercial airliners through a NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and a partnership with The Boeing Company.
Before commercial airliners are deemed safe to fly before each trip, a pre-flight inspection must be completed. This process can take up to four hours, and can involve workers climbing around the plane to check for any issues, which can sometimes result in safety mishaps as well as diagnosis errors.
With NASA and Boeing funding to bolster commercial readiness, Near Earth Autonomy developed a drone-enabled solution, under their business unit Proxim, that can fly around a commercial airliner and gather inspection data in less than 30 minutes. The drone can autonomously fly around an aircraft to complete the inspection by following a computer-programmed task card based on the Federal Aviation Administration’s rules for commercial aircraft inspection. The card shows the flight path the drone’s software needs to take, enabling aircraft workers with a new tool to increase safety and efficiency.
“NASA has worked with Near Earth Autonomy on autonomous inspection challenges in multiple domains,” says Danette Allen, NASA senior leader for autonomous systems.
“We are excited to see this technology spin out to industry to increase efficiencies, safety, and accuracy of the aircraft inspection process for overall public benefit.”
The photos collected from the drone are shared and analyzed remotely, which allows experts in the airline maintenance field to support repair decisions faster from any location. New images can be compared to old images to look for cracks, popped rivets, leaks, and other common issues.
The user can ask the system to create alerts if an area needs to be inspected again or fails an inspection. Near Earth Autonomy estimates that using drones for aircraft inspection can save the airline industry an average of $10,000 per hour of lost earnings during unplanned time on the ground.
Over the last six years, Near Earth Autonomy completed several rounds of test flights with their drone system on Boeing aircraft used by American Airlines and Emirates Airlines.
NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research / Small Business Technology Transfer program, managed by the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, aims to bolster American ingenuity by supporting innovative ideas put forth by small businesses to fulfill NASA and industry needs. These research needs are described in annual SBIR solicitations and target technologies that have significant potential for successful commercialization.
Small business concerns with 500 or fewer employees, or small businesses partnering with a non-profit research institution such as a university or a research laboratory can apply to participate in the NASA SBIR/STTR program.
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Last Updated Jan 03, 2025 EditorDede DiniusContactTeresa Whitingteresa.whiting@nasa.govLocationArmstrong Flight Research Center Related Terms
Armstrong Flight Research Center Advanced Air Mobility Ames Research Center Drones & You Flight Innovation Glenn Research Center Langley Research Center SBIR STTR Explore More
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By USH
During an interview with Chris Letho, Dr. Courtney Brown, a university professor and founder of Farsight.org, an organization known for its remote-viewing phenomenon through the process of scientific experimentation, has made a bold prediction: larger UFOs will begin appearing in increasing numbers across the U.S. in the next month. He asserts their presence will serve as undeniable proof that humanity is not alone in the universe, forcing governments to disclose the truth about alien life.
While intriguing, this claim has been met with skepticism. Could it be true that aliens are stepping forward to force disclosure? Or, might this be part of a staged event orchestrated by shadowy forces, such as the "Deep State," to stage an UFO invasion.
Recently, a witness in California filmed a massive craft with flickering lights hovering silently over a city. This object, described as far larger than the drones or UFOs previously reported, has sparked further speculation. Witnesses noted that these objects appear to be increasing in size, and many argue they are clearly not conventional drones.
The sighting raises questions: could this lend credibility to Dr. Brown’s claims of imminent extraterrestrial revelation? Or are these larger crafts part of a deceptive agenda, as explained by Dark Journalist? See our previous article: Mystery drones: A 'dry run' to a false UFO event to trigger COG emergency powers.
One way or another, we will know in the coming months!
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:01:22 An ethereal dance of misty clouds of interstellar dust with a myriad of distant stars and galaxies speckled like paint drops over a black canvas. This is a sonification of a breathtaking image king image taken by ESA's Euclid space telescope of the young star-forming region Messier 78.
The sonification offers a different representation of the data collected by Euclid, and lets us explore the stellar nurseries in M78 through sound. Close your eyes and listen to let the cosmic image be drawn by your mind’s eye, or watch as the traceback line in this video follows the sounds to colour the image from left to right.
The twinkling sounds of various pitches and volumes represent the galaxies and stars in the frame. The pitch of the sound points towards where we see the dot of light in the image. Higher pitches tell us that a star or galaxy appears further at the top in the image along the traceback line.
The brightness of these objects in and around M78 are represented by the volume of the twinkles. Whenever we hear a particularly loud clink, the star or galaxy that Euclid observed appears particularly bright in the image.
Underlying these jingling sounds, we can hear a steady undertone, made up of two chords which represent different regions in Messier 78. This sound intensifies as the traceback line approaches first the brightest, and later the densest regions in the nebula.
The first two deeper crescendos in this undertone indicate two patches in the image where the most intense colour is blue/purple. These appear as two ‘cavities’ in M78, where newly forming stars carve out and illuminate the dust and gas in which they were born.
The chords intensify a third time at a slightly higher pitch corresponding to the red-orange colours in the image, as the sound draws over the densest star-forming region of the frame. This stellar nursery is hidden by a layer of dust and gas that is so thick that it obscures almost all the light of the young stars within it.
As the sound traces over the entire Euclid image, these different tones together form a cosmic symphony that represents the image of Messier 78, and the stars and galaxies that lie behind and within it. You can read more about this image that was first revealed to the eyes of the world earlier this year here.
Many thanks to Klaus Nielsen (DTU Space / Maple Pools) for making the sonification in this video. If you would like to hear more sonifications and music by this artist, please visit: https://linktr.ee/maplepools
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By NASA
5 Min Read Hats Off to NASA’s Webb: Sombrero Galaxy Dazzles in New Image
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently imaged the Sombrero galaxy with its MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), resolving the clumpy nature of the dust along the galaxy’s outer ring. Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI In a new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a galaxy named for its resemblance to a broad-brimmed Mexican hat appears more like an archery target.
In Webb’s mid-infrared view of the Sombrero galaxy, also known as Messier 104 (M104), the signature, glowing core seen in visible-light images does not shine, and instead a smooth inner disk is revealed. The sharp resolution of Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) also brings into focus details of the galaxy’s outer ring, providing insights into how the dust, an essential building block for astronomical objects in the universe, is distributed. The galaxy’s outer ring, which appeared smooth like a blanket in imaging from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope, shows intricate clumps in the infrared for the first time.
Image A: Sombrero Galaxy (MIRI Image)
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently imaged the Sombrero galaxy with its MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), resolving the clumpy nature of the dust along the galaxy’s outer ring. This image includes filters representing 7.7-micron light as blue, 11.3-micron light as green, and 12.8-micron light as red. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Image B: Sombrero Galaxy (Hubble and Webb Image)
Image Before/After Researchers say the clumpy nature of the dust, where MIRI detects carbon-containing molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, can indicate the presence of young star-forming regions. However, unlike some galaxies studied with Webb, including Messier 82, where 10 times as many stars are born than the Milky Way galaxy, the Sombrero galaxy is not a particular hotbed of star formation. The rings of the Sombrero galaxy produce less than one solar mass of stars per year, in comparison to the Milky Way’s roughly two solar masses a year.
Even the supermassive black hole, also known as an active galactic nucleus, at the center of the Sombrero galaxy is rather docile, even at a hefty 9-billion-solar masses. It’s classified as a low luminosity active galactic nucleus, slowly snacking on infalling material from the galaxy, while sending off a bright, relatively small, jet.
Also within the Sombrero galaxy dwell some 2,000 globular clusters, collections of hundreds of thousands of old stars held together by gravity. This type of system serves as a pseudo laboratory for astronomers to study stars — thousands of stars within one system with the same age, but varying masses and other properties is an intriguing opportunity for comparison studies.
In the MIRI image, galaxies of varying shapes and colors litter the background of space. The different colors of these background galaxies can tell astronomers about their properties, including how far away they are.
The Sombrero galaxy is around 30 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.
Video: Sombrero Galaxy Fade (Spitzer, Webb, Hubble)
A Bright Future Ahead
Stunning images like this, and an array of discoveries in the study of exoplanets, galaxies through time, star formation, and our own solar system, are still just the beginning. Recently, scientists from all over the world applied for observation time with Webb during its fourth year of science operations, which begins in July 2025.
General Observer time with Webb is more competitive than ever. A record-breaking 2,377 proposals were submitted by the Oct. 15, 2024, deadline, requesting about 78,000 hours of observation time. This is an oversubscription rate, the ratio defining the observation hours requested versus the actual time available in one year of Webb’s operations, of around 9 to 1.
The proposals cover a wide array of science topics, with distant galaxies being among the most requested observation time, followed by exoplanet atmospheres, stars and stellar populations, then exoplanet systems.
The Space Telescope Science Institute manages the proposal and program selection process for NASA. The submissions will now be evaluated by a Telescope Allocation Committee, a group of hundreds of members of the worldwide astronomical community, on a dual-anonymous basis, with selections announced in March 2025.
While time on Webb is limited, data from all of Webb’s programs is publicly archived, immediately after it’s taken, or after a time of exclusive access, in the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) so it can be used by anyone in the world.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
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Media Contacts
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Hannah Braun – hbraun@stsci.edu, Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Related Information
Article: Types of Galaxies
Video: Celestial Tour: Different types of galaxies
Article: Sombrero Galaxy’s Halo Suggests Turbulent Past
More images: Images of the Sombrero Galaxy in different types of light
Video: Sonification of Sombrero Galaxy images
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Last Updated Nov 25, 2024 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
Astrophysics Galaxies Goddard Space Flight Center James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Science & Research Spiral Galaxies The Universe View the full article
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