Insider Brief:
- NASA has named the 13 awardees of the 2024 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program.
- Each researcher will receive a combined maximum of $175,000 in grants to explore innovative and creative ideas that could potentially support future space missions.
- The researchers will use the funds to investigate and develop their concepts in hopes of making them a reality.
- Image Credit: NASA
NASA has announced the selection of 13 Phase I awardees for the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. NIAC aims to fund early-stage technology concept studies for potential future commercialization and agency missions. The program provides a combined maximum award of $175,000 to examine innovative ideas that will push the boundaries of what is possible in space exploration. NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free, credits the NIAC program for inspiring many of the ideas that have resulted in several of the “daring missions NASA undertakes for the benefit humanity.”
The selected concepts include exploring low Earth orbit, fixed-wing flight on Mars, a swarm of probes traveling across interstellar space, and more. One proposal involves flying the first fixed-wing electric vertical takeoff and landing craft on Mars, while another suggests a swarm of tiny spacecraft traveling to Proxima Centauri using a laser sailcraft and laser communications.
All projects are in the early stages of conceptual development and aim to push the boundaries of space exploration possibilities. The researchers will use their NIAC grants to investigate and develop the fundamental premises of their concepts and ultimately aim to make them a reality.
Find the full list of awardees as reported by NASA below.
- Ge-Cheng Zha, Coflow Jet LLC in Florida, fly the first fixed-wing, electric vertical takeoff, and land craft on Mars
- Thomas Eubanks, Space Initiatives Inc. in Florida, send a swarm of tiny spacecraft to travel to Proxima Centauri
- Geoff Landis, NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, a spacecraft that can survive Venus’ harsh environment and return a sample from the surface
- Steven Benner, Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Florida: Add-on to Large-scale Water Mining Operations on Mars to Screen for Introduced and Alien Life
- James Bickford, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Massachusetts: Thin Film Isotope Nuclear Engine Rocket
- Peter Cabauy, City Labs, Inc., Florida: Autonomous Tritium Micropowered Sensors
- Kenneth Carpenter, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland: A Lunar Long-Baseline Optical Imaging Interferometer: Artemis-enabled Stellar Image
- Matthew McQuinn, University of Washington, Seattle: Solar System-Scale VLBI to Dramatically Improve Cosmological Distance Measurements
- Aaswath Pattabhi Raman, University of California, Los Angeles: Electro-Luminescently Cooled Zero-Boil-Off Propellant Depots Enabling Crewed Exploration of Mars
- Alvaro Romeo-Calvo, Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta: Magnetohydrodynamic Drive for Hydrogen and Oxygen Production in Mars Transfer
- Lynn Rothschild, NASA’s Ames Research Center, California’s Silicon Valley: Detoxifying Mars: The Biocatalytic Elimination of Omnipresent Perchlorates
- Ryan Sprenger, Fauna Bio Inc., California: A revolutionary approach to interplanetary space travel: Studying Torpor in Animals for Space-health in Humans
- Beijia Zhang, MIT’s Lincoln Lab, Massachusetts: LIFA: Lightweight Fiber-based Antenna for Small Sat-Compatible Radiometry For more market insights, check out our latest space industry news here.
