Space and planet research

NASA Awards Grants to 13 Innovative Concept Studies for 2024

Thirteen research projects have been selected for the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts’ 2024 Phase I program, with the awardees’ focus ranging from planetary exploration to a star-bound journey of a swarm of communication spacecraft.

The 2024 NIAC fellows are companies and institutions from across the United States, with each awardee receiving a $175,000 grant to probe technologies that could be useful in future space missions, NASA said Thursday.

Five of the 13 awardees are focused on early-stage technology concept studies for Mars planetary exploration. A research project from Ge-Cheng Zha of Coflow Jet in Florida will look into flying the first fixed-wing, electric vertical takeoff and landing spacecraft on the Red Planet.

Another Florida researcher, Steven Benner of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, will study large-scale Mars water mining to probe for alien life forms.

Planetary exploration focused on Venus, on the other hand, is the goal of Geoff Landis, a NIAC fellow from NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. Landis’ study proposes a high-temperature-resistant spacecraft capable of surviving the harsh Venus environment and returning a sample from the planet back to Earth.

Meanwhile, Thomas Eubanks of Space Initiatives in Florida will research sending a fleet of laser-powered small spacecraft to Proxima Centauri, the star nearest Earth.

NASA selected 14 projects for NIAC in 2023 and 17 in 2022.