Monday, January 18, 2010

Aurora Flight Sciences awarded SBIR grant

By Brendan Lynch

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Aurora Flight Sciences Corp. reports it has landed a Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research Grant to develop technology for a hot air balloon to operate on Saturn’s moon, Titan.

Under the grant, Aurora will develop a rapid buoyancy modulation system for the balloon, which NASA plans to use to explore Titan’s dense atmosphere. Aurora plans to use chemical reactions to provide intermittent heat input to interior gases to provide buoyancy, rather than NASA’s current system, which is to use waste heat from the balloon’s radioisotope power system .

Aurora will work with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the project.

Headquartered in Manassas, Va., Aurora houses its research and development in Cambridge.