Project Grant D19AP00017

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $272,800 SBIR Phase I Project Grant to Morningbird Media Corporation to develop and test a prototype propulsion engine that utilizes electromagnetic energy to enable high-speed space travel. The goal is to create a fundamentally new approach to spacecraft propulsion that could lead to orders of magnitude faster space travel compared to current chemical propulsion systems. The key technical objectives are to develop a complex dielectric material and...

This National Science Foundation project grant award of $540,000 provides funding from August 1, 2022 to July 31, 2025 to support research into relativistic plasmas under extreme conditions. The award is made under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049), which aims to advance scientific knowledge and understanding in these fields. Specifically, the principal investigator at Arizona State University will investigate the role of super-strong magnetic fields on observable...

This three-year, $345,000 project grant from the National Science Foundation's Mathematical and Physical Sciences program will support collaborative research between the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and Marquette University to advance understanding of novel plasma physics processes in antimatter experiments. The researchers will develop new kinetic theory and molecular dynamics simulations to study electron and positron compression, antiproton cooling, and mixing/recombination of antiprotons...

This $265,965 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) supports research and development by Nearstar Fusion Inc., a for-profit organization, on a new approach to fusion energy for grid-based electric power. The project aims to perform computational modeling, analytical calculations, and design work to de-risk and establish a point design for a "hypervelocity gradient field fusion" concept. This...

This $244,849 federal Project Grant award from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under the Space Technology program (CFDA 43.012) supports research and development of stabilized z-pinch fusion driven electromagnetic propulsion technologies at the University of Texas at Austin. The three-year award, spanning from May 2025 to May 2028, aims to advance technologies for future space exploration by developing innovative fusion-based propulsion systems. The University of Texas...

This Project Grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will fund the University of Maryland, College Park to upgrade its existing 100 terawatt laser system to increase output pulse energy by a factor of four. Totaling $155,249, the award under the NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) will support relativistic physics experiments in plasma, nonlinear optics, and laboratory astrophysics through July 2025. Specifically, the upgraded laser will enable tabletop...

General Atomics was awarded a $102,432 project grant from the Department of the Air Force Materiel Command Research Laboratory under the Air Force Defense Research Sciences Program (CFDA 12.800) to develop electromagnetic launch capabilities for resource exploitation on the moon. The one-year grant running from October 1, 2022 to September 30, 2023 will support General Atomics' research efforts to design and test electromagnetic launch systems that can be deployed on the lunar surface to...

This $850,000 National Science Foundation project grant supports research at the University of Colorado Boulder to advance understanding of particle acceleration in plasmas driven by lasers. Specifically, the three-year award will fund simulation and experimental studies of optical field ionization-generated plasma channels for particle acceleration using laser wakefield acceleration. Researchers will conduct accurate simulations of plasma channel formation, characterize generated...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Astronomical Sciences awarded a $707,214 Project Grant to the University of Colorado under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) to develop next-generation general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) models for simulating black hole accretion flows and jets. The project aims to accurately link multi-wavelength observations of jets to the properties of the supermassive black hole and its surrounding environment. This...

This $329,290 National Science Foundation project grant supports research at the University of Maryland Baltimore County to improve understanding of outflows from accreting supermassive black holes and their impact on host environments. Funded under the NSF's Mathematical and Physical Sciences program, the three-year award will coordinate multiwavelength observations using the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System in Arizona and other observatories. Researchers will pair...