Amazonian Leaders Visit “Space for Earth”

Amazonian leaders visit “Space for Earth,” an immersive audio-visual installation that draws from near real-time satellite data and images, in NASA’s Earth Information Center at the NASA Headquarters Mary W. Jackson Building in Washington on Nov. 17, 2023.

The leaders, joined by University of Richmond faculty and NASA representatives, gathered to discuss how NASA’s data can be used to help protect the Amazon.

The NASA Headquarters photographers chose this photo as one of the best images from 2023.

Explore the Earth Information Center.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…
Michelle Zajac

NIAC 2024 Selections

Phase I

Matthew McQuinn
Solar System-Scale VLBI to Dramatically Improve Cosmological Distance Measurements
University of Washington, Seattle
Seattle, Washington 98195-1000
2024 Phase I

Kenneth Carpenter
A Lunar Long-Baseline Optical Imaging Interferometer: Artemis-enabled Stellar Imager (AeSI)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD 20771-2400
2024 Phase I

Alvaro Romero-Calvo
Magnetohydrodynamic Drive for Hydrogen and Oxygen Production in Mars Transfer
Georgia Tech Research Corporation
Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0001
2024 Phase I

James Bickford
Thin Film Isotope Nuclear Engine Rocket (TFINER)
Charles Stark Draper Laboratory
Cambridge, MA 02139-3539
2024 Phase I

Ge-Cheng Zha
Mars Aerial and Ground Global Intelligent Explorer (MAGGIE)
Coflow Jet, LLC
Cutler Bay, Florida 33190-0000
2024 Phase I

Steven Benner
Add-on to Large-scale Water Mining Operations on Mars to Screen for Introduced and Alien Life
Foundation For Applied Molecular Evolution
Alachua, Florida 32615-9544
2024 Phase I

Lynn Rothschild
Detoxifying Mars: The Biocatalytic Elimination of Omnipresent Perchlorates
NASA Ames Research Center (ARC)
Moffett Field, California 94035-1000
2024 Phase I

Thomas Eubanks
Swarming Proxima Centauri: Coherent Picospacecraft Swarms Over Interstellar Distances
Space Initiatives, Inc.
Titusville, Florida 32780
2024 Phase I

Beijia Zhang
LIFA: Lightweight Fiber-based Antenna for Small Sat-Compatible Radiometry
University of Washington, Seattle
Seattle, Washington 98195-1000
2024 Phase I

Ryan Sprenger
A Revolutionary Approach to Interplanetary Space Travel: Studying Torpor in Animals for Space-health in Humans (STASH)
Fauna Bio Inc.
Newark, California 94560-1000
2024 Phase I

Geoffrey Landis
Sample Return from the Surface of Venus
NASA Glenn Research Center
Cleveland, Ohio 44135-3127
2024 Phase I

Peter Cabauy
Autonomous Tritium Micropowered Sensors
City Labs, Inc.
Miami, Florida 33186-6401
2024 Phase I

Aaswath Pattabhi Raman
Electro-luminescently Cooled Zero-boil-off Propellant Depots Enabling Crewed Exploration of Mars
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California 90095-8357
2024 Phase I

Keep Exploring

Discover More NIAC Topics

Space Technology Mission Directorate

NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts

NIAC Funded Studies

About NIAC

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…
Loura Hall

Electro-luminescently Cooled Zero-boil-off Propellant Depots Enabling Crewed Exploration of Mars

Aaswath Pattabhi Raman
University of California, Los Angeles

Exploration of Mars has captivated the public in recent decades with high-profile robotic missions and the images they have acquired seeding our collective imagination. NASA is actively planning for human exploration of Mars and laid out some of the key capabilities that must be developed to execute successful, cost-effective programs that would put human beings on the surface of another planet and bring them home safely. One crucial area where new missions and enabling technologies are needed is the long-duration storage of cryogenic propellants in various space environments; relevant propellants include liquid Hydrogen (LH2) for high specific impulse Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) which can be deployed in strategic locations in advance of a mission. Such LH2 storage tanks could be used to refill a crewed Mars Transfer Vehicle (MTV) to send and bring astronauts home quickly, safely, and cost-effectively.

We propose a breakthrough mission concept: a cryogenic liquid storage depot capable of storing LH2 with ZBO even in the severe and fluctuating thermal environment of LEO. Our innovative storage depot mission employs thin, lightweight, all-solid-state panels attached to the tank’s deep-space-facing surfaces that utilize a long-understood but as-yet-unrealized cooling technology known as Electro-Luminescent Cooling (ELC) to reject heat from cold solid surfaces as non-equilibrium thermal radiation with orders of magnitude more power density than Planck’s Law permits for equilibrium thermal radiation. Such a depot and tank would drastically lower the cost and complexity of propulsion systems for crewed Mars missions and other deep space exploration by allowing spacecraft to refill propellant tanks after reaching orbit rather than launching on the much larger rocket required to lift the spacecraft in a single-use stage. To achieve ZBO, a storage spacecraft must keep the storage tank’s temperature below the boiling point of the cryogen

(e.g., ≈20 K for liquid H2). Achieving this in LEO-like thermal environments requires both excellent reflectivity toward sunlight and thermal radiation from the Earth and other nearby bodies as well as a power-efficient cooling mechanism to remove what little heat inevitably does leak in, a pair of conditions ideally suited to the the ELC panel concept that enables our mission. By enabling ZBO LH2 storage in LEO, our mission will enable cost-effective, and flexible crewed exploration of Mars. Our mission will also demonstrate capabilities with ancillary benefits to cryogenic storage in terrestrial applications and solid-state cooling technologies more generally.

2024 Phase I Selection

Keep Exploring

Discover More NIAC Topics

Space Technology Mission Directorate

NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts

NIAC Funded Studies

About NIAC

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…
Loura Hall

A Revolutionary Approach to Interplanetary Space Travel: Studying Torpor in Animals for Space-health in Humans (STASH)

Ryan Sprenger
Fauna Bio Inc.

The use of non-model organisms in medical research is an expanding field that has already made a significant impact on human health. Insights gleaned from the study of unique mammalian traits are being used to develop novel therapeutic agents. The remarkable phenotype of mammalian hibernation confers unique physiologic and metabolic benefits that are being actively investigated for potential human health applications on Earth. These benefits also hold promise for mitigating many of the physical and mental health risks of space travel. The essential feature of hibernation is an energy-conserving state called torpor, which involves an active and often deep reduction in metabolic rate from baseline homeostasis. Additional potential benefits include the preservation of muscle and bone despite prolonged immobilization and protection against radiation injury. Despite this remarkable potential, the space-based infrastructure needed to study torpor in laboratory rodents does not currently exist, and hibernation in microgravity has never been studied. This is a critical gap in our understanding of hibernation and its potential applications for human spaceflight. We propose to remedy this situation through the design and implementation of STASH, a novel microgravity hibernation laboratory for use aboard the ISS. Some unique and necessary design features include the ability to maintain STASH at temperatures as low as 4°C, adjustable recirculation of animal chamber air enabling the measurement of metabolism via oxygen consumption, and measurement of real-time total ventilation, body temperature, and heart rate. The STASH unit will also feature animal chamber sizes that will accommodate the expected variety of future hibernating and non-hibernating species, boosting its applicability to a variety of studies on the ISS by enabling real-time physiological measurements. The STASH unit is being designed in collaboration with BioServe Space Technologies to be integrated into the Space Automated Biological Laboratory (SABL) unit. This will allow for the achievable and practical application of this research to advance our understanding of both hibernation and mammalian physiology in space. The short-term goals of the STASH project are novel investigations into the basic science of hibernation in a microgravity environment, laying the foundation for application of its potential benefits to human health. These include determining whether hibernation provides the expected protection against bone and muscle loss. The medium-term goals of the project begin developing translational applications of hibernation research. These include using STASH both for testing bioactive molecules that mimic the transcriptional signatures of hibernation and for evaluating methods of inducing synthetic torpor for their ability to provide similar protection. As a long-term goal, during a crewed mission to Mars, human synthetic torpor could act as a relevant countermeasure that would change everything for space exploration, mitigating or eliminating every hazard included in NASA’s RIDGE acronym for the hazards of space travel: Space Radiation, Isolation and Confinement, Distance from Earth, Gravity Fields, and Hostile/Closed Environments. Research performed using STASH will be an essential first step toward acquiring fundamental knowledge about the ability of hibernation to lessen the health risks of space. This knowledge will inform development of both biomimetic drug countermeasures and the future infrastructure needed to support torpor-enabled human astronauts engaged in interplanetary missions. We feel that STASH is the epitome of the high-risk, high-reward projects for which NIAC was established.

2024 Phase I Selection

Keep Exploring

Discover More NIAC Topics

Space Technology Mission Directorate

NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts

NIAC Funded Studies

About NIAC

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…
Loura Hall

LIFA: Lightweight Fiber-based Antenna for Small Sat-Compatible Radiometry

Zhang, Beijia Zhang, Beijia
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Lincoln Lab

Very large space-based RF antennas can be large and expensive to manufacture and deploy. These problems become more challenging for cases when an array of antennas are needed such as for correlation interferometers that provide high spatial resolution of Earth and space. The proposal will specifically examine the potential applicability of novel fiber-based antennas to L-band radiometry for the purpose of generating high resolution soil moisture and sea surface salinity data. Initial estimates indicate that a x10 improvement on resolution may be possible with long fiber-based antenna arrays. Lincoln Laboratory has been investigating the ability to produce large flexible RF antenna arrays embedded in polymer fibers. These lightweight fibers are flexible enough to be coiled and uncoiled, thus facilitating transport and deployment. The metal that forms the antenna structure and other conductive elements is embedded inside a polymer boule that is heated and drawn to form a novel type of fiber. The resulting fiber thus has multiple materials embedded inside for the ability to support sensing capabilities and other functionalities. Thus, this fiber fabrication process may also lead to a cost-effective means to create very large antennas. This work will include analysis of the required antenna performance and the ability of fiber-based antennas to meet those requirements, deployment strategies, satellite specifics, space tolerance of components and materials, a preliminary system-level design, and concept of operations.

2024 Phase I Selection

Keep Exploring

Discover More NIAC Topics

Space Technology Mission Directorate

NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts

NIAC Funded Studies

About NIAC

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…
Loura Hall