The Collier Report of U.S. Government Contracting

Sampling of Federal Government Funding Actions/Set Asides

In order by amount of set aside monies.

• $236,540 - Wednesday the 25th of July 2012
  Department Of Navy
  OFFICE OF NAVAL RESEARCH
  RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE PHYSICAL, ENGINEERING, AND LIFE SCIENCES (EXCEPT BIOTECHNOLOGY)

  ---

• $149,974 - Thursday the 2nd of February 2012
  Department Of Air Force
  FA8650 USAF AFMC AFRL/RQK
  DEVELOPMENT OF AN EXTENDED ALTIUS

  ---

• $124,966 - Monday the 18th of March 2013
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  THE AREA-I TEAM HAS DEVELOPED AND FABRICATED THE UNMANNED PROTOTYPE-TECHNOLOGY EVALUATION AND RESEARCH AIRCRAFT OR PTERA ("PTERA" BEING GREEK FOR WING, OR WING-LIKE). THE PTERA IS AN EXTREMELY VERSATILE AND HIGH-QUALITY, YET INEXPENSIVE FLIGHT RESEARCH TESTBED THAT SERVES AS A BRIDGE BETWEEN WIND TUNNEL AND MANNED FLIGHT TESTING BY ENABLING THE LOW-COST, LOW-RISK FLIGHT-BASED EVALUATION OF A WIDE ARRAY OF HIGH-RISK TECHNOLOGIES. FOR THIS WORK, THE TEAM PROPOSES A FLIGHT TEST EVALUATION OF THE PTERA PLATFORM TO ASSESS ITS EFFECTIVENESS AS A RESEARCH TEST BED AIRCRAFT WITHIN NASA'S AERONAUTICAL TEST PROGRAM (ATP). THE PTERA STANDS TO ENHANCE THE ALREADY CAPABLE ATP BY ENABLING THE LOW-COST, LOW-RISK FLIGHT-BASED EVALUATION OF EVERYTHING FROM ADVANCED AERODYNAMIC TREATMENTS TO SENSOR PAYLOADS. SEVERAL CORE CAPABILITIES THAT THE PTERA WOULD BRING TO THE ATP: 1) A LOW-COST, LOW-RISK FLIGHT TEST FACILITY THAT CAN BE USED TO EXPAND ATP'S ROLE IN THE TESTING AND VALIDATION OF NASA'S PHYSICS-BASED MULTI-DISCIPLINARY ANALYSIS AND OPTIMIZATION (MDAO) TOOLS 2) THE ABILITY TO FLIGHT TEST ADVANCED AERODYNAMIC TREATMENTS, HEALTH MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL SYSTEMS, AND TO PERFORM EXPERIMENTS IN STRUCTURES AND AEROELASTICITY FOR A FRACTION OF THE COST OF A MANNED FLIGHT TEST PROGRAM 3) THE ABILITY TO FLIGHT TEST CUTTING-EDGE AND COMPLEX SYSTEMS WHOSE COST AND RISK ARE TOO HIGH FOR MANNED FLIGHTS 4) A TESTBED WITH MODULAR AIRFRAME, ENABLING THE EVALUATION OF MULTIPLE TECHNOLOGIES WITH THE SAME AIRFRAME 5) A TESTBED WITH A LARGE PAYLOAD CAPACITY THAT FACILITATES THE INEXPENSIVE AND RISK-MITIGATING FLIGHT TEST EVALUATION OF A WIDE ARRAY OF SENSORS AND PAYLOADS AS WELL AS THE EVALUATION OF FLIGHT-TEST MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS BEFORE THEY TRANSITION TO MANNED PROGRAMS 6) THE ABILITY TO PERFORM UNMANNED, AUTONOMOUS, FLIGHT EXPERIMENTS RELATING TO THE BURGEONING FIELD OF AUTONOMOUS UNMANNED AIRCRAFT, INCLUDING EXPERIMENTS SUPPORTING UAS INTEGRATION IN TO THE NAS, SENSE AND AVOID, ETC.

  ---

• $124,953 - Tuesday the 14th of May 2013
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  THE AREA-I TEAM HAS DEVELOPED AND FABRICATED THE UNMANNED PROTOTYPE-TECHNOLOGY EVALUATION AND RESEARCH AIRCRAFT OR PTERA ("PTERA" BEING GREEK FOR WING, OR WING-LIKE). THE PTERA IS AN EXTREMELY VERSATILE AND HIGH-QUALITY, YET INEXPENSIVE FLIGHT RESEARCH TESTBED THAT SERVES AS A BRIDGE BETWEEN WIND TUNNEL AND MANNED FLIGHT TESTING BY ENABLING THE LOW-COST, LOW-RISK FLIGHT-BASED EVALUATION OF A WIDE ARRAY OF HIGH-RISK TECHNOLOGIES. FOR THIS WORK, THE TEAM PROPOSES TO AUGMENT THE EXISTING PTERA PLATFORM SUCH THAT IT IS DIRECTLY TAILORED FOR LOSS-OF-CONTROL (LOC) FLIGHT RESEARCH. THE RESULTING PTERA-LOC CONFIGURATION WILL PROVIDE THE NASA LOC FLIGHT RESEARCH PROGRAM WITH THE FOLLOWING CORE CAPABILITIES: 1) A LARGE AIRFRAME THAT MINIMIZES SCALING AND REYNOLDS NUMBER EFFECTS, YET IS EASILY DISASSEMBLED AND TRANSPORTED 2) A MODULAR FUSELAGE DESIGN THAT WILL ENABLE THE RECONFIGURATION OF THE PTERA-LOC FUSELAGE, THUS ALLOWING THE TEAM TO FABRICATE/ASSEMBLE FUSELAGE CONFIGURATIONS THAT MAINTAIN NEAR GEOMETRIC SIMILITUDE WITH A WIDE ARRAY OF "TUBE-AND-WING" AIRCRAFT USING EXISTING FUSELAGE TOOLING. 3) MODULAR WING DESIGN THAT FACILITATES THE INTEGRATION OF ADVANCED AERODYNAMIC TREATMENTS, SPLIT CONTROL SURFACES, AND AEROELASTIC AND DAMAGE EMULATION MECHANISMS. 4) LARGE PAYLOAD CAPACITY, VOLUMINOUS PAYLOAD BAYS, AND LARGE CLAMSHELL DOORS THAT FACILITATE THE INTEGRATION OF SENSOR AND AVIONICS SYSTEMS, PROVIDE EASY ACCESS DURING FLIGHT TESTING, AND ALLOW FOR PLENTY OF PAYLOAD CAPACITY AND VOLUME FOR INTEGRATING BALLAST FOR DYNAMIC SCALING. 5) A LOW-COST AIRFRAME THAT FACILITATES THE EXECUTION OF FLIGHT TEST MANEUVERS AND/OR THE FLIGHT TESTING OF CUTTING-EDGE AND COMPLEX SYSTEMS WHOSE RISKS AND/OR COSTS ARE TOO HIGH FOR MANNED FLIGHTS

  ---