Research proposals selected for technology development

These scenarios could result from two of the 111 proposals NASA has selected as part of its Cross-Enterprise Technology Development Program. The agency will spend more than $120 million seeking high-payoff technologies to revolutionize future space-flight systems.

Over the next one-to-three years, principal investigators in 30 states, chosen from a field of more than 1200 applicants, will explore promising new ideas that could lead to the agency's achieving many of its long-range goals in space science, Earth science and human exploration of space. Forty-nine percent of the selected proposals are from universities.

The broad range of studies, to be conducted by universities, industry, and private and government laboratories will address ten general technology areas. For example, new sensors will be developed for the gathering of previously unavailable science data
from remote sources. The automation of spacecraft functions will be studied to enable complex new missions with greatly reduced human intervention. New component technologies including advanced materials, micro-devices and support systems will be developed that can significantly reduce the mass, cost and on-board resource needs of future spacecraft.

The Cross-Enterprise Technology Development Program is a primary NASA vehicle for identifying and developing revolutionary space technologies to enable future missions and stimulate new concepts for missions not yet conceived.

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