Tag: NIAC Studies

Mycotecture off Planet: En route to the Moon and Mars

NeRD

4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Artist concept depicting a new novel aerospace concept for NIAC Phase III 2024. Credit: Lynn Rothschild Lynn RothschildNASA Ames Research Center (ARC) A turtle carries its habitat. While reliable, it costs energy in transporting mass. NASA makes the same trade-off when it transports habitats and other structures off planet “on the back” of its missions. While this approach is reliable, to save upmass and increase mission flexibility, NASA must be more like a bird, low mass, agile and building…

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ScienceCraft for Outer Planet Exploration (SCOPE)

NeRD

2 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Artist’s depiction of ScienceCraft, which integrates the science instrument with the spacecraft by printing a quantum dot spectrometer directly on the solar sail to form a monolithic, lightweight structure. Mahmooda Sultana Mahmooda SultanaNASA Goddard Space Flight Center Missions to the outer solar system are an important part of NASA’s goals because these scarcely visited worlds, particularly the ice giants Neptune and Uranus, hold secrets about the formation and evolution of our solar system and countless others. However, due to…

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