Nasa has awarded early stage innovation grants to 11 universities to work on technologies that will help the agency on future science and human exploration missions.
The selected universities will carry out research on technologies protection that include materials modelling, utilisation of asteroid materials, mobile robotic surface probe concepts for planetary exploration, and kinetic penetrators for icy planetary moons.
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Nasa space technology mission directorate associate administrator Michael Gazarik said: "Research in these critical technology areas will enable science and exploration of our home planet, future deep space missions and our journey to Mars.
"New space technology enables exploration, while providing real world economic benefits to the American people right here on Earth, right now."
Universities selected include Iowa State University, Ames; Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla; Montana State University, Bozeman; Stanford University, Stanford; Texas A&M University, College Station; University of California, Berkeley and University of Washington, Seattle.
Each grant is worth $500,000 and the R&D activities will be carried out for the next three years.
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By GlobalDataThe early stage innovation effort is part of Nasa’s space technology research grants programme, designed to accelerate the development of technologies that support future science and exploration needs of the agency and the commercial space sector.
Image: Research into advanced technologies such as thermal protection materials modelling will enable future space exploration. Photo: courtesy of Nasa / Eric Stern.
