Recovery act- -the aviation safety program, part of NASA S aeronautics research mission directorate, explores ways to improve the overall safety of aircraft that fly today in U.S. Airspace and those…

This federal contract award, valued at $662,400.00, was issued by NASA's Langley Research Center to the National Institute of Aerospace Associates (NIA), a non-profit research and graduate education institute. The purpose of the award is to support research related to the study of damage processes and the development of improved durability of aeronautical structural materials, which is part of NASA's Aviation Safety Program. This work aims to improve aircraft safety for current and future civilian and military aircraft, and to overcome technological barriers that would constrain the full realization of the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). The contract is structured as a cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order with no set-aside designation.

Recovery act- -the aviation safety program, part of NASA S aeronautics research mission directorate, explores ways to improve the overall safety of aircraft that fly today in U.S. Airspace and those that will fly in the U.S. System for tomorrow the next generation air transportation system, or nextgen (WWW.jpdo.GOV/nextgen.ASP). One of the biggest challenges to developing the nextgen is improving safety while also improving efficiency in more crowded skies. New aircraft will use new operations; people will have new roles. To safely integrate those new requirements, the aviation safety program conducts research to: identify safety concerns that could emerge from a more decentralized future airspace system; explore whether data mining of digital flight data and voluntarily submitted reports can reveal vehicle issues as well as flight operations issues; study and identify causes of engine icing; improve on-board systems that monitor overall vehicle health to make maintenance more efficient; analyze system-wide safety properties of vehicles and operations and the safety aspects of software-intensive systems; develop advanced flight control systems for new aircraft; analyze how communication networks accommodate both human-automation and human-human interactions; and test the safety and durability of new materials proposed for future vehicles. The program builds upon the unique safety-related research capabilities of NASA to improve aircraft safety for current and future civilian and military aircraft, and to overcome aircraft safety technological barriers that would otherwise constrain the full realization of the nextgen. The aircraft aging and durability (AAD) project is part of the aviation safety program and focuses on aging and damage processes in "young" aircraft, rather than life extension of legacy vehicles, and emphasizes new and emerging material systems/fabrication techniques and the potential hazards associated with aging-related degradation. AAD's goal is to take a proactive approach to identifying aging-related hazards before they become critical, and to developing technology and processes to incorporate aging mitigation and maintenance into the design of future civilian and military aircraft. Major research challenges include: improving understanding of how cracks in materials start and grow; developing computer models to predict crack growth in metallic and nonmetallic materials; identifying the durability of nonmetallic (COMPOSITE) materials used for aircraft fuselages; improving the ability to detect bonded joint degradation; identifying the long-term service and environmental needs of COMPOSITE jet engine containment cases; improving understanding of how quickly engine disks operating at hotter temperatures degrade over time; and developing new software tools to better identify and repair wiring faults. The purpose of this task order is to support NASA langley research center in research related to the study of damage processes and the development of improved durability of aeronautical structural materials.