Im Rahmen des NIAC-Programms (NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts) für 2026 sind 18 neue Konzepte in die Förderung aufgenommen worden:
- Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California:
Dimming the Sun Using Controllable Dust Cloud to Reduce Solar Insolation (DimSun)
- David Bugby, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Combinatory Architecture
offering Neomobility, on-Venus Adaptability, and Survivability (CANVAS)
- A.C. Charania, Zeno Power Systems, Inc., Washington: Extended Astronaut
Radioisotope-EVA in Nighttime and Deep-space Icy Landscapes (EARENDIL)
- Anish Damodaran, University of Central Florida, Orlando: PS21:
Transforming Submillimeter Space Interferometry with Photonic Technologies
- Artur Davoyan, University of California, Los Angeles:
Coilable Stacked Solar Sails for Very High delta-V Missions
- Daniel Drew, University of Hawaii, Honolulu:
Solid-state Propulsion for Autonomous Reconnaissance of Karst (SPARK)
- Gilly Elor, Stone Aerospace, Inc., Del Valle, Texas:
Power-over-Fiber to Enable a Lunar Underground eXplorer (LUX)
- Zhaoyan Liu, NASA Ames Research Center, California’s Silicon Valley:
Quantum Wind Lidar Applications for Planetary and Earth Science Missions
- Jeff Nosanov, Orbital Velocity, LLC, Decatur, Georgia: OBLIVIAN:
Observing Black hole LIght Via Intensity cOrrelatioN (OBLIVIAN)
- Keunhan Park, University of Utah, Salt Lake City: Plasmon-Enhanced
Radioisotope Thermophotovoltaic (PRTPV) Power Generation for Interstellar Missions
- Austin Phoenix, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia:
Efficient variable Conductivity Lunar Insulator for Passive Surveyor Environmental Control
(ECLIPSE)
- Marco Quadrelli, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: PRAXIS:
Planetary Rings Autonomous EXploration with In-situ Sampling (PRAXIS)
- Michael Rubenstein, Northwestern University, Chicago: Actively Steerable Femtosat
Constellations for In-situ Exploration of Saturn’s Rings, Atmosphere, and Magnetosphere
- Benjamin Schafer, Rarefied Technologies Inc., Albuquerque, New Mexico:
Photophoretic Tracers for Near-Space Remote Sensing at 30-100 km Altitudes
- David Smith, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina:
Robotically Assembled Electromagnetic Metamaterials for Long-Range Space
Situational Awareness
- Pablo Sobron, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, Mountain View, California:
Interworld Slingshot Resource Surveys
- Paul Stankus, Brookhaven Science Associates, Upton, New York:
Mapping Alien Continents: Achieving Optical VLBI for Exoplanet Imaging
- Paul Stankus, Brookhaven Science Associates, Upton, New York:
Precision Astrometry Using Optically Independent Spacecraft for Gravitational Wave
Detection
(
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-awards-2026-innovative-technology-concepts/)
Besonders gut gefallen haben mir die RHU-beheizten Raumanzüge für Ausflüge in der Mondnacht (EARENDIL) und die Steigerung der Effizienz von Radioisotope Thermovoltaic Power Generation (PRTPV) um den Faktor 7:
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/niac/niac-studies/plasmon-enhanced-radioisotope-thermophotovoltaic-prtpv-power-generation-for-interstellar-missions/Hoffentlich überlebt diese überschäumende Produktivität den personellen Aderlass bei der NASA und die sonstigen Beschädigungen der Wissenschaftslandschaft durch die Trump-Administration ...
