A collage of artist concepts highlighting the new approaches proposed by the 2024 NIAC Phase II winners for possible future missions. Credit: NASA, From left to right: Edward Balaban, Mary Knapp, Mahmooda Sultana, Brianna Clements, Ethan Schaler
NASAThe Innovative Advanced Concepts program is advancing six “science fiction-style” space technology projects, including a lunar railway and a liquid telescope.
Six visionary concept studies have been selected by NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program for additional funding and development. Each study has already completed the initial NIAC phase, showing that their futuristic ideas – such as a lunar railway system and liquid-based telescopes – could provide new perspectives and approaches as NASA explores the unknown in space.
The NIAC Conceptual Phase II studies will receive up to $600,000 to continue work over the next two years to address key remaining technical and budgetary hurdles and pave their development path forward. When Phase II is complete, these studies can advance to the final NIAC phase, earning additional funding and development consideration to become a future aerospace mission.
“These diverse, science fiction-like concepts represent an exciting class of Phase II investigations,” said John Nelson, NIAC program director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Our NIAC fellows continue to amaze and inspire, and this course will certainly give NASA a lot of food for thought about what is possible in the future.”
The six concepts chosen for the NIAC Phase II Awards 2024 are:
- Fluidic Telescope (FLUTE): Enabling the next generation of large space observatories would create a large optical observatory in space using fluid formation of ionic liquids. These space-based observatories could potentially help investigate NASA’s highest-priority astrophysical targets, including Earth-like exoplanets, first-generation stars and young galaxies. The FLUTE study is led by Edward Balaban of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California.
- Pulsed Plasma Rocket: Shielded, Fast Transits for Humans to Mars is an innovative propulsion system that relies on the use of fission-generated packets of plasma for thrust. This innovative system could significantly reduce travel times between Earth and any destination in the solar system. This study is led by Brianna Clements of Howe Industries in Scottsdale, Arizona.
- The Great Observatory for Long Wavelengths (GO-LoW) could change the way NASA conducts astronomy. This low-frequency mega-constellation radio telescope uses thousands of autonomous SmallSats capable of measuring the magnetic fields emitted by exoplanets and the cosmic Dark Ages. GO-LoW is led by Mary Knapp with MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- Radioisotope Thermoradiative Cell Power Generator explores new energy sources in space, which may operate at higher efficiency than NASA’s older power generators. This technology could enable small research and scientific spacecraft in the future that cannot carry bulky solar or nuclear power systems. This concept study on energy generation is by Stephen Polly of the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.
- FLOAT: Flexible levitation on a track would be a lunar railway system that allows reliable, autonomous and efficient transportation of cargoes on the moon. This rail system could support the daily operations of a sustainable lunar base as early as the 2030s. Ethan Schaler leads FLOAT at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
- ScienceCraft for Outer Planet Exploration spreads Quantum Dot-based sensors across the surface of a solar sail, allowing it to become an innovative image sensor. Quantum physics would allow NASA to make scientific measurements by studying how the dots absorb light. By utilizing the solar sail’s surface area, lighter, more cost-effective spacecraft can transport imaging sensors across the solar system. ScienceCraft is led by NASA’s Mahmooda Sultana at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate funds the NIAC program because it is responsible for developing the agency’s new cross-cutting technologies and capabilities to achieve its current and future missions.
For more information about NIAC and the 2024 Phase II studies, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/stmd-the-nasa-innovative-advanced-concepts-niac/