NASA has created 18 new Phase I awards totaling $3.2 million under the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program to support early-stage aerospace technology ideas. Each selected project receives up to $175,000 to fund an initial nine-month investigation into concepts ranging from solar system exploration to understanding the universe.
The agency noted that the awarded concepts are early-stage study projects rather than official NASA space missions. Greg Stover, director of the Advanced Research and Technology division at NASA Headquarters, said achieving the agency's goals of returning to the Moon and advancing to Mars requires technological leaps beyond incremental improvements.
Lunar and Planetary Exploration
Several projects selected for 2026 target lunar exploration and infrastructure development. Proposed concepts include a system supporting hovering robots to explore underground lava tubes on the Moon. Other projects address temperature management for small mobile exploration robots. Another proposal incorporates radioisotopic heat sources into spacesuits to warm astronauts during two-week lunar nights.
Other awardees plan to investigate planetary environments elsewhere in the solar system. One project focuses on hardening research instruments against the high temperatures of Venus. Two separate concepts propose studying planetary rings. One concept uses a swarm of 10,000 tiny satellites to map Saturn’s rings. Another design collects samples directly from rings circling Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Deep Space and Earth Science
Projects focused beyond the solar system intend to study methods for powering interstellar spacecraft, mapping exoplanet continents, observing photon rings near black holes, and detecting subtle gravitational waves. Additional proposals address Earth-related applications, such as using spaceborne dust to reduce solar radiation and tracking orbital debris.
Researchers designated as NIAC Fellows will evaluate the feasibility of these concepts and identify potential challenges during the initial study phase. NASA did not state when any potential Phase II follow-on grants would be announced.
Selected 2026 Phase I Projects
The 18 grants awarded for 2026 cover a range of academic institutions, NASA centers, and private enterprise projects:
- Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Dimming the Sun Using Controllable Dust Cloud to Reduce Solar Insolation (DimSun)
- David Bugby, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Combinatory Architecture offering Neomobility, on-Venus Adaptability, and Survivability (CANVAS)
- A.C. Charania, Zeno Power Systems, Inc.: Extended Astronaut Radioisotope-EVA in Nighttime and Deep-space Icy Landscapes (EARENDIL)
- Anish Damodaran, University of Central Florida: PS21: Transforming Submillimeter Space Interferometry with Photonic Technologies
- Artur Davoyan, University of California, Los Angeles: Coilable Stacked Solar Sails for Very High delta-V Missions
- Daniel Drew, University of Hawaii: Solid-state Propulsion for Autonomous Reconnaissance of Karst (SPARK)
- Gilly Elor, Stone Aerospace, Inc.: Power-over-Fiber to Enable a Lunar Underground eXplorer (LUX)
- Zhaoyan Liu, NASA Ames Research Center: Quantum Wind Lidar Applications for Planetary and Earth Science Missions
- Jeff Nosanov, Orbital Velocity, LLC: OBLIVIAN: Observing Black hole LIght Via Intensity cOrrelatioN
- Keunhan Park, University of Utah: Plasmon-Enhanced Radioisotope Thermophotovoltaic Power Generation for Interstellar Missions
- Austin Phoenix, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University: Efficient variable Conductivity Lunar Insulator for Passive Surveyor Environmental Control
- Marco Quadrelli, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: PRAXIS: Planetary Rings Autonomous EXploration with In-situ Sampling
- Michael Rubenstein, Northwestern University: Actively Steerable Femtosat Constellations for In-situ Exploration of Saturn’s Rings, Atmosphere, and Magnetosphere
- Benjamin Schafer, Rarefied Technologies Inc.: Photophoretic Tracers for Near-Space Remote Sensing at 30-100 km Altitudes
- David Smith, Duke University: Robotically Assembled Electromagnetic Metamaterials for Long-Range Space Situational Awareness
- Pablo Sobron, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute: Interworld Slingshot Resource Surveys
- Paul Stankus, Brookhaven Science Associates: Mapping Alien Continents: Achieving Optical VLBI for Exoplanet Imaging
- Paul Stankus, Brookhaven Science Associates: Precision Astrometry Using Optically Independent Spacecraft for Gravitational Wave Detection
The program is managed within the Research and Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. Contact details provided for the release include NASA media representative Robert J. Margetta.
