Dozens of concepts are being presented at this year’s NASA Innovative
Advanced Concepts Symposium, including eight led by technologists from
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
NASA missions make it seem like the future is now – rovers exploring Mars
with cutting-edge gadgets, a spacecraft venturing home with an asteroid
sample, and a complex space telescope peering at the early universe. So,
what’s the next big thing? What might space missions in 2050 and beyond set
out to discover?
One small NASA program aims to see what could be possible. The NASA
Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, part of the agency’s Space
Technology Mission Directorate, funds early-stage research into sci-fi
sounding, futuristic technology concepts. The goal is to find what might
work, what might not, and what exciting new ideas researchers may come up
with along the way.
During NIAC’s annual Symposium Sept. 21-23, 2021, researchers will present ideas that could one day be
game-changers in space. Watch the event to
learn more about these four technology concepts and more.
1. Swimming micro-robots for ocean worlds.
Ocean worlds, where liquid oceans lie beneath miles of icy crust, are some
of the most likely locations in our solar system to harbor life – an
enticing prospect for scientists. Accessing and exploring these aquatic
environments present unique challenges. Ethan Schaler, a robotics mechanical
engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, is
researching one promising idea for exploration: Using 3D-printed,
centimeter-scale robots equipped with sensors and actuators. A mothercraft
that drilled through the ice and deployed the micro-bots would also
wirelessly control them using ultrasound waves.
2. Long-reach crawling and anchoring robots for Martian caves.
While swimming robots could be ideal for some destinations, others will
require something with a firmer grip. Marco Pavone, an associate professor
at Stanford University, is developing a potential solution. His ReachBot
concept could quickly crawl through caves, using extendable booms to grasp
over long distances. Its various features would allow small and lightweight
robots to move around in tricky environments, such as vertical cliff walls
or the rocky and uneven floors of caves on Mars.
3. Lightweight deployable structures that expand in space.
Getting extra-large spacecraft off Earth takes lots of planning, as the size
of what can go to space depends on how much a rocket can fit. Multiple
launches and in-space assembly have proven successful in the past, but there
could be another way. Assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University
Zachary Manchester is considering ways to integrate recent advances in
mechanical metamaterials into a lightweight deployable structure design.
Such a structure could be launched inside a single rocket fairing and then
deploy autonomously to a final size of the length of 10 football fields.
4. Seeding asteroids with fungi to create space soil.
Space habitat concepts come in all shapes and sizes. But all designs have a
common challenge requiring innovative thinking: How will space travelers
sustain themselves during long journeys? Jane Shevtsov, working with Trans
Astronautica Corporation, offers creating soil from carbon-rich asteroid
material. The fungi would physically break down the material and chemically
degrade toxic substances. Similar processes take place on Earth, like oyster
mushrooms cleaning up petroleum-contaminated soil. The NIAC research aims to
find a way for future space habitats to have ample green space and robust
agricultural systems.
NASA selects NIAC proposals through a peer-review process that evaluates
innovation and technical viability. All projects are still in the early stages
of development, with most requiring a decade or more of technology maturation.
They are not considered official NASA missions.
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