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NASA Funds R&D into Mitigating Dust for Future Lunar Explorers
Gene Cernan covered in moon dust after walking on the lunar surface. (Credit: NASA)

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Moon dust poses a major challenge to NASA as the space agency prepares to return astronauts to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. The abrasive, glass-like dust sticks to spacesuits, irritates throats and lungs, and threatens to clog vital equipment.

To address these challenges, NASA has selected lunar dust mitigation projects from Force Engineering, Innovative Aerospace, Smart Material Solutions and Cornerstone Research Group for continued funding under its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The Phase II grants are worth up to $750,000 each. The companies previously received smaller SBIR Phase I grants.

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  • May 31, 2022
NASA Announces Winners of 2022 Human Exploration Rover Challenge
NASA Logo.

WASHINGTON, (NASA PR) — NASA has recognized a new generation of potential space explorers who competed in the agency’s 28th annual Human Exploration Rover Challenge.

High school and college students from around the U.S. and world have spent the last eight months designing, building, and testing their rovers for the challenge – one of the original seven NASA Artemis Student Challenges. NASA announced the winners during a virtual awards ceremony April 29. The challenge involved 91 teams, including 58 colleges and 33 high schools.

The challenge tasked U.S. and international student teams with designing, engineering, and testing a human-powered rover on a course simulating terrain found on rocky bodies in the solar system. Teams also performed mission assignments while negotiating the course, including sample retrievals and spectrographic analysis.

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  • May 4, 2022
NASA Invests in Tech Development From Small Businesses, Researchers
A new round of awards for small business and research partnerships will advance technology development. A partnership between Interstel Technologies, Inc., and University of Hawaii at Manoa will develop a system for guiding swarms of vehicles, such as rovers, illustrated here. (Credits: NASA)

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA’s Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program has awarded $15 million to U.S. small businesses and research institutions to continue developing technologies in areas ranging from aeronautics to science and space exploration.

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  • February 21, 2022
NASA Selects New Members for Artemis Rover Science Team
VIPER rover on the moon. (Credit: NASA)

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. (NASA PR) — When NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, explores and samples the soils at the Moon’s South Pole, scientists anticipate it will reveal answers to some of the Moon’s enduring mysteries. Where is the water and how much is there? Where did the Moon’s water come from? What other resources are there?

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  • January 4, 2022
AFRL Selects 10 Universities for Prestigious Satellite Program
Graphic representation of Arachne, the first solar power beaming experiment for the Space Solar Power Incremental Demonstrations & Research Project. (Credit: AFRL)

KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. (AFRL PR) – The Air Force Research Laboratory’s University Nanosatellite Program (UNP) has selected 10 universities to participate in the upcoming 2-year partnership to design, fabricate and test small satellites.

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  • November 28, 2021
University Students Design Prototypes NASA Could Develop in Missions to the Moon, Mars, and Beyond
The University of Maryland, College Park team used this prototype cabin to investigate the design of minimal cabin volumes for deep space exploration missions. (Credits: University of Maryland, College Park)

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — The 2020 Moon to Mars eXploration Systems and Habitation (X-Hab)  Academic Innovation Challenge supports NASA’s efforts to develop technologies and capabilities that will enable future human missions to the Moon, Mars, and other solar system destinations.

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  • December 28, 2020
NASA Selects 19 Small Business Tech Transfer Projects for Further Funding

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has selected 19 proposals from 17 U.S. small businesses for a total of more than $14 million in follow-on funding through the agency’s Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program. The awards will help advance NASA priorities such as the Artemis program and other initiatives in aeronautics, human exploration and operations, science, and space technology. 

NASA’s STTR program is open to small businesses partnering with U.S. research institutions to develop an innovation or technology. The partnering component distinguishes STTR from its sister program, NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR). 

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  • December 8, 2020
NASA’s Swift Mission Tallied Water From Interstellar Comet Borisov
NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory’s Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope captured six snapshots of Borisov as it traveled through the solar system. This GIF shows the UV images, with Borisov in the center. (Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)

by Jeanette Kazmierczak
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

GREENBELT, Md. (NASA PR) — For the first time, NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory tracked water loss from an interstellar comet as it approached and rounded the Sun. The object, 2I/Borisov, traveled through the solar system in late 2019.

“Borisov doesn’t fit neatly into any class of solar system comets, but it also doesn’t stand out exceptionally from them,” said Zexi Xing, a graduate student at the University of Hong Kong and Auburn University in Alabama who led the research. “There are known comets that share at least one of its properties.”

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  • April 29, 2020
NIAC Award: Flat Fabrication of Progressively Self-Assembling Space Systems

NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phase I AwardAmount: $125,000 Flat Fabrication of Progressively Self-Assembling Space Systems Davide GuzzettiAuburn University This project aims to study the feasibility of integrating an array of microchips with space satellite functions, or ChipSats, on a multifunctional shape memory polymer (SMP) bus that is capable of self-folding when exposed to solar radiation. This technology may enable the flat fabrication of kilometer-sized antenna arrays for radio astronomy […]

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  • April 21, 2020