Current Projects

The Microgravity Ullage Trapping project develops acoustic methods to form, migrate, and trap ullage bubbles in a spacecraft propellant tank in microgravity. The program seeks to solve a core problem in the development of in-space propellant transfer technologies: the need to vent the receiver tank of ullage gas during propellant transfer/replenishment.

The Carthage Space Sciences Lab is currently partnering with the NASA Johnson Space Center to develop prototype hardware to demonstrate the use of phased array ultrasonic fields to cause the formation, migration, and collection of helium bubbles in liquid propellants.

The MUT program is supported by the NASA Science Mission Directorate Grant.

In-space detection of the location and distribution of liquid propellant inside a tank is an unsolved problem that has attracted considerable attention as NASA and commercial partners begin designing systems and architectures for sustained presence in deep space. All current deep-space architectures rely on the existence of in-space propellant depots to facilitate the use of both earth-storable and cryogenic propellants over periods of months or more. These refueling stations and their visiting spacecraft must be capable of exchanging cryogenic and earth-storable fluids, venting ullage gasses, detecting two-phase flow, and managing cryogenic boil-off, all in microgravity conditions. Earth storable propellants (typically, monomethyl hydrazine – MMH) are extremely toxic and cannot be safely vented to space in the presence of spacecraft.

NASA supports Carthage in the development of a technology to use Macro Fiber Composite (MFC) sensors as sensitive detectors of the ullage location and movement inside a propellant tank. This real-time method tracks the dynamics of the ullage and reconstructs its location and size inside the tank.

The MUD program is supported by the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate Grant.

The Carthage Space Sciences Lab is a member of the NASA T2U program. T2U provides opportunities for students to develop and commercialize NASA technology through patent licensing from the NASA technology portfolio. Carthage works with the NASA Fiber Optic Sensing System (FOSS) technology to implement vibration detection and characterization for structural health monitoring and liquid mass gauging in high-pressure spacecraft propellant tanks.

The FOSS program is supported by the NASA T2U program.

The Propellant Refueling and On-orbit Transfer Operations (PROTO) experiment developed sub-scale propellant tanks similar to the one planned for the Lunar Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element (PPE). The Carthage PROTO project developed computational models of fluid dynamics in the PPE tank, flew three suborbital missions, and four parabolic flight missions with the PROTO experiment. The objectives of the program are to model the equilibrium location of the propellant inside the tank at various fill fractions and to assess the viability of the MPG technology in gauging propellant flow during in-space propellant transfer. 

The PROTO program is supported by NASA Flight Opportunity Program grant #80NSSC20K0105.

Intuitive Machines soft-landed Odysseus, the first of its Nova-C Class lunar landers, on the surface of the Moon on February 23, 2024. The second Nova-C Class lander will land on the south lunar pole on the rim of the Shackleton Crater. The Modal Propellant Gauging system (MPG) is part of the technology included on this IM-2 Mission. The Carthage SSL has worked on MPG from its beginnings as a joint project with NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in 2008. Carthage students continue to be involved in the development and characterization of the technology.

The Intuitive Machines collaboration program is supported by contracts with the NASA Johnson Space Center EP division.

The third NASA TechLeap Prize challenges applicants to make it easier to integrate diverse technology payloads onto various commercial suborbital vehicles, orbital flight platforms, and planetary landers. NASA has partnered with the Carthage College Space Sciences Lab to build payloads for the UPIC challenge competition awardees to test their designs on a suborbital flight to space. The selection of Carthage SSL for this program provides student participants with an exciting opportunity to build on the strengths of the Lab’s payload build history to evolve new designs and to work with NASA, as well as their commercial and academic customers. More information about the NASA UPIC Challenge.

The SSL participation in the NASA UPIC program is supported by the NASA Flight Opportunities Program.

More information about the NASA UPIC Challenge