Aerospace has incredible talent, 2023 edition. Nasa recently revealed the list projects selected to participate in phase I (out of a total of three) of its NIAC competition (for Nasa Innovative Advanced Concepts). The goal is to feed “visionary ideas that could transform future NASA missions by creating breakthrough, radically better or entirely new aerospace concepts”, explains the agency on its website.
14 applicants, three funding phases
Launched in 1998, then arrested on August 31, 2007, the NIAC competition has resumed service since 2011. The 14 selected candidates (universities, NASA departments, private companies) presented concepts as crazy as they are innovative in fields ranging from aerospace to energy, passing by astronomy and biochemistry. All hope to obtain the financing that will allow them to make their idea a reality.
During this first phase, a grant of $175,000 was allocated to each of them. They will then have nine months to come up with a more complete proposal. Successful participants in Phase II will win new funding of $600,000 and will then have two years to grow their roadmap. In phase III, one candidate per year will be chosen. Thanks to additional funding of 2 million dollars, it will be for the lucky winner to prepare his project for its operational phase.
Among all the projects presented, there are five that aim to search for traces of extraterrestrial life or exoplanets (i.e. planets outside our own solar system) similar to Earth, where life could have appeared. This is the most worked theme during this 2023 edition of the competition. Thus, Edward Balaban and his team at the NASA research center are proposing a new very large diameter space telescope, called FLUTE, which would allow much better observation of exoplanets. These being not very luminous, it is necessary to have the widest possible diameter to capture more photons.
An illustration of the FLUTE telescope concept © Edward Balaban
The project leader explains that on Earth, we are limited in size to about 6 m in diameter for the main mirror of our space telescopes (James-Webb’s is 6.5 m). To achieve this dimension, it is also necessary to assemble several small mirrors. On the other hand, the FLUTE would be manufactured directly in space thanks to an innovative process which would make it possible to obtain a single mirror of… 50 m in diameter. Something to revolutionize astronomy.
Heidi Newberg of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute would also like to develop a space telescope, but has taken a different, if not opposite, approach. In the case of its DICER instrument, only two small mirrors a few meters in diameter would be used, but accompanied by a coronagraph to obscure the light of the stars around which the exoplanets orbit, so as to make them more detectable and analysable.
An illustration of the DICER telescope. © Heidi Newberg
Finally, a third solution proposed by Mary Knapp (MIT) would consist of deploying a network of thousands of satellites capable of detecting low-frequency radio waves emitted by exoplanets and analyzing their magnetic field. A radio telescope made up of thousands of small observatories, in short.
Unravel the mysteries of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn
To search for traces of life, other methods are considered. Quinn Morley, from Planet Entreprises, is considering the creation of a seaplane to explore the seas and lakes of hydrocarbons present on the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. The device, a sort of flying boat judging by the illustration provided by the company, could collect various types of samples for analysis purposes, at a steady pace since it would operate missions of several hours a day. .
An illustration of the TitanAir project, the seaplane imagined to explore Saturn’s moon Titan © Quinn Morley
Europa, Jupiter’s moon, the dwarf planets Pluto and Ceres, as well as Enceladus, Saturn’s satellite, have also been in the sights of several space agencies for quite some time. And for good reason, these objects would shelter oceans of liquid water under their thick mantle of ice, a favorable ground for the appearance of life. However, to penetrate the mysteries of these distant worlds, it will first be necessary to penetrate the tens of kilometers of ice which separate the surface from the liquid ocean, which will not be easy.
But the task could be made easier in the future thanks to the work of Theresa Benyo of NASA’s Glenn Research Center. His study provides for the development of a new type of heating probe. The idea here is to use nuclear energy to generate heat and melt the shell of these ice worlds. In this way, the instrument could easily enter the heart of these objects to reveal their secrets to us.
Towards faster space travel?
The other major theme dealt with by the projects selected in phase I of the competition is space travel. Three intend to significantly accelerate movement in space. It must be said that currently, we are only going out on our doorstep. For long journeys, Artur Davoyan of the University of California offers a system worthy of a science fiction film.
A schematic of the University of California’s laser beam propulsion system. © Artur Davoyan
It would be a laser propelling particles at very high velocity towards a spacecraft in order to push it in the desired direction. Thanks to this technology, a ship could move through space at the speed of about 33 astronomical units per year. This is almost 10 times more than the Voyager 1 probe (3.6 astronomical units per year), the only human device to have left the heliosphere. What theoretically open the door to inhabited interstellar travel.
The other two space travel projects focus on propulsion systems. A little less futuristic, they would employ nuclear energy to generate thrust.
Colonize the Moon and Mars
Finally, the Moon having returned to the heart of the concerns of government space agencies, thanks in particular to Chinese involvement and discoveries, as well as recent programs such as Artemis, some projects intend to facilitate its exploration and colonization. This is the case of the lunar gas pipeline envisaged by Peter Curreri of the American company Lunar Resources. The latter wants to build a 5 km installation on the surface of our natural satellite in order to transport oxygen from the production sites to the lunar stations. The system could also supply the rovers with oxygen.
The Lunar Resources pipeline. © Peter Curreri
NASA intends to extract oxygen from lunar rock, as well as other valuable elements such as helium 3. To facilitate the search for natural resources on the Moon, Christopher Morrison, of the Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation, offers the EmberCore Flashlight, a new kind of flashlight. Using X and gamma rays, this would make it possible to analyze the composition of the lunar surface from a distance, but also of what lies below. For example, it would be able to detect the presence of water. It could also be used as heating or lighting to simply clear the way for rovers.
The EmberCore Flashlight X-ray and Gamma lamp. © Christopher Morrison
Just as crazy is the project carried out by Congrui Jin, of the University of Nebraska, intended this time for the colonization of Mars. It envisions the development of a biological construction kit with diazotrophic cyanobacteria and fungi as glue to create and assemble bricks of Martian rock. Finally, the last candidates of the competition are a space battery, a new space manufacturing process for reflectors and a system for levitating vehicles or charging in the Earth’s upper atmosphere.
All these projects will obviously not succeed. Although they are all theoretically feasible, the road to industrialization will be long and tedious. But NASA is hopeful of finding the next innovation that will change space exploration forever. See you in nine months for the next details of the various projects and the transition to phase II of the NIAC competition.