John Mather, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, is designing the first family of ISEE’s (Inflatable Starshade for Earthlike Exoplanets) with sizes from 35 to 100 meters in diameter. A starshade would enable any telescope to observe exoplanets, a top priority for astronomy worldwide. Compared with other starshade concepts, they aim for a lower mass, cost …
Using low-bandgap III-V materials such as InAsSb in nanostructured arrays to limit potential loss mechanisms, a 25x improvement in mass specific power and ten thousands times decrease in volume from a MMRTG is an early estimate, with higher performance possible depending on operating conditions. TRC technology will allow a proliferation of small versatile spacecraft with …
Larger telescopes are better because we can see better and capture more light, so NASA is developing liquid based space telescopes that would let us build 50 meter telescopes for the cost of 10 meter telescopes. The future of space-based UV/optical/IR astronomy requires ever larger telescopes. The highest priority astrophysics targets, including Earth-like exoplanets, first …
A breakthrough pulsed plasma rocket is getting NASA phase 2 innovative concepts funding. It will have 15 times the efficiency of chemical rockets and with high levels of thrust at the level of a medium sized chemical rocket. Howe Industries is currently developing a propulsion system that may generate up to 100,000 Newtons of thrust …
SpaceX had to destack and replace a grid fin actuator. The FAA license has been granted but SpaceX is now targeting a 20 minute window start at 7 AM Central time on Saturday. Starship stacked for flight. This is another chance to put Starship in a true flight environment, maximizing how much we learn. Rapid …
Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) is one of the best options for manned missions throughout the solar system with over double the ISP of chemical rockets. A new NASA NIAC study will look at improved nuclear propulsion with a Wave Rotor combined with Nuclear Electric. This could enable four times the ISP of nuclear thermal and …
The future of space-based UV/optical/IR astronomy requires ever larger telescopes. A NASA NIAC Phase 1 study will look at a space observatory with a large-aperture (50-meter) unsegmented primary mirror suitable for a variety of astronomical applications. The mirror would be created in space via a novel approach based on fluidic shaping in microgravity, which has …
NASA has a phase 1 NIAC (NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts) to overcome the limitations for making giant lightweight dish structures in space. In this NIAC effort, they aim to overcome limitations by using a novel in-space manufacturing method and advanced materials to fabricate high-performance reflectors with dimensions greater than 100 meters, 100 m/m surface precision, …
A Phase 1 NASA NIAC study will demonstrate the feasibility of a revolutionary power source for missions to the outer planets utilizing a new paradigm in thermal power conversion, the thermoradiative cell (TRC). This device, driven by a radioisotope heat source, will allow an order of magnitude increase in mass specific power (~30 vs ~3 …
NASA NIAC phase 1 studies development of a nuclear fission fragment rocket engine (FFRE) that is exponentially more propellent efficient than rocket engines currently used to power today’s space vehicles and could achieve very high specific impulse (>100,000 sec) at high power density (>kW/kg). Fission Fragment rockets are several proposed nuclear rocket designs made since …
NASA NIAC has a phase 1 study for Artur Davoyan to study propulsion architecture for fast transit of heavy (1 ton and more) payloads across the solar system and to interstellar medium. This version of a pellet beams approach allow for larger vehicles to reach speeds nine times faster than Voyager 1. Inspired by the …