Insider Brief:
- NASA has released its 2024 Civil Space Shortfall Ranking document, ranking nearly 200 technology areas needing development to support future space exploration and missions.
- The initiative aims to address space technology’s most pressing technical challenges and help guide NASA’s development and investment strategies, ensuring alignment with the community’s consensus on critical shortfalls.
- At the top of the list is the challenge of surviving and operating through the lunar night, as the extreme temperature drops during this time complicate the operation of science experiments, rovers, and habitats.
NASA has released its 2024 Civil Space Shortfall Ranking document, ranking nearly 200 technology areas needing development to support future space exploration and missions. The Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) compiled the list using feedback from a wide range of stakeholders, including NASA mission directorates, industry organizations, government agencies, academia, and other experts.
The initiative aims to address the most pressing technical challenges in space technology. This effort helps guide NASA’s development and investment strategies, ensuring alignment with the community’s consensus on critical shortfalls.
At the top of the list is the challenge of surviving and operating through the lunar night. The extreme temperature drops during the lunar night complicate the operation of science experiments, rovers, and habitats. Addressing this requires advancements in power, thermal management, and motor systems. Following closely are the needs for high-power energy generation on the Moon and Mars and high-performance spaceflight computing.
NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free noted the importance of industry collaboration: “Identifying consensus among challenges across the aerospace industry will help us find solutions together. This groundwork strengthens the nation’s technological capabilities, paving the way for new discoveries, economic opportunities, and scientific breakthroughs.”
The report shows strong agreement among stakeholders on the top 30 shortfalls. Other highly rated areas include advanced habitation systems, autonomous systems and robotics, communications and navigation, power, avionics, and nuclear propulsion. Beyond the top 30, the importance of shortfalls varies by stakeholder interest and expertise, highlighting the need for strategic investments across multiple areas.
Michelle Munk, Acting Chief Architect for STMD, noted that the feedback has already sparked important conversations. “The inputs received are already igniting meaningful conversations to help us and our stakeholders make smarter decisions. We will refine the process and results annually to ensure we maintain a useful approach and tool that fosters resilience in our space technology endeavors.”
The 2024 results are based on 1,231 responses, including 769 from within NASA and 462 from external sources. STMD grouped, totaled, and averaged these scores from nine stakeholder groups, applying pre-determined weights to create the overall ranking. NASA also published ranked results for each stakeholder group based on the 2024 feedback.
The rankings are based on numerical scores and not responses to open-ended questions. NASA expects the qualitative feedback to provide further insights.
STMD will use this list’s annual updates to continually assess and adjust its technology development portfolio, ensuring that the U.S. leadership in space technology remains strong and drives economic growth.
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