SBIR Phase I: Artificial Gravity Stabilization System for Space Habitats

这一小型企业创新研究项目具有更广泛的影响/商业潜力，能够创造一种全新的空间栖息地，使人类能够在不危及健康的情况下在太空生活和工作。在不久的将来，发射能力的提高将从根本上增加前往太空的人数，以利用只能在微重力下完成的事情。这些人包括研究下一代救命药物的研究人员，为下一代计算机制造高纯度半导体的工人，以及想要体验太空自由和观赏地球的游客。这些人有一个共同的需求：容易获得微重力，以实现他们在太空的目的，同时不遭受微重力暴露对健康的重大影响；因此，微重力和人工重力都需要在同一个空间栖息地中实现。开发诸如此类的平台将有助于加速太空研发，同时支持更高的太空实验和研发吞吐量。解决方案是非常大的、可扩展的、不旋转的太空栖息地，内部有一个足够大的旋转离心机，供宇航员在不需要微重力的情况下生活和工作。这些离心机需要一个先进的稳定系统，因为当宇航员在离心机周围移动时，重心会发生变化，这将导致旋转产生摆动。SBIR一期方案在解决稳定问题的同时避免了以往方案的缺陷，也适用于传统的旋转空间站。本研究的目的是建立具有代表性的稳定系统的实验室规模原型，并开发控制系统模型，以证明该稳定系统在全尺寸时的有效性。这包括捕获系统稳定人体运动（如行走）所需的响应性，证明冗余存在，并表征离心机质量分布对稳定控制系统的总体影响。进一步的原型将展示其封装在一个可扩展的栖息地模块中的能力，而额外的分析将量化设计一个包含大型内部离心机和稳定系统的栖息地的成本效益。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project enables an entirely new class of space habitat that will enable humans to live and work in space without endangering their health. In the near future, improvements in launch capability will radically increase the number of people traveling to space to take advantage of what can only be done in microgravity. These include researchers studying the next lifesaving medicine, workers manufacturing high-purity semiconductors for the next generation of computers, and tourists wanting to experience the freedom of space and the sight of Earth. These individuals share a common need: easy access to microgravity to fulfill their purpose of being in space while simultaneously not enduring significant health impacts from microgravity exposure; thus, both microgravity and artificial gravity need to be accessible in the same space habitat. Development of platforms such as these would help enable an acceleration of in-space R&D, along with supporting higher throughput of in-space experimentation and R&D. The solution is very large, expandable non-rotating space habitats, with an internal rotating centrifuge large enough for astronauts to live and work in when not needing microgravity. These centrifuges need an advanced stabilization system because as astronauts move around the centrifuge, the center-of-gravity shifts, which due to the rotation would induce a wobble. This SBIR Phase I project proposes to solve the stabilization problem while avoiding flaws of previously proposed approaches and is also applicable to traditional rotating space stations. The objective of this research is to build representative lab-scale prototypes of the stabilization system and develop a control system model to prove the efficacy of this stabilization system when at full scale. This includes capturing the responsiveness required for the system to stabilize human motion, such as walking, proving redundancy is present, and characterizing the overall impact centrifuge mass distribution has on the stabilization control system. Further prototypes will demonstrate its ability to package within an expandable habitat module, while additional analysis will quantify the cost benefits of designing a habitat incorporating a large internal centrifuge and stabilization system.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.