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A collage of artist concepts highlighting the novel approaches proposed by the 2026 NIAC awardees for possible future missions.<\/p>\n
NASA\/Left to Right: Keunhan Park, Michael Rubenstein, Austin Phoenix, Benjamin Schafer, A.C. Charania, Gilly Elor, Pablo Sobron, Marco Quadrelli, Daniel Drew, Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay, Jeff Nosanov, Anish Damodaran <\/p>\n
Phase I<\/p>\n
Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay<\/p>\n
Dimming the Sun (DimSun) Using Controllable Dust Cloud to Reduce Solar Insolation<\/a><\/p>\n NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory<\/p>\n Pasadena, CA 91109-8001<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n David Bugby<\/p>\n Combinatory Architecture offering Neomobility, on-Venus Adaptability, and Survivability (CANVAS)<\/a><\/p>\n NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory<\/p>\n Pasadena, CA 91109-8001<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n Anish Damodaran<\/p>\n PS21: Transforming Submillimeter Space Interferometry with Photonic Technologies<\/a><\/p>\n University of Central Florida<\/p>\n Orlando, FL 32826-2933<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n Artur Davoyan<\/p>\n Coilable Stacked Solar Sails for Very High delta-V Missions<\/a><\/p>\n University of California<\/p>\n Los Angeles, CA 90024-0001<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n A.C. Charania<\/p>\n EARENDIL: Extended Astronaut Radioisotope-EVA in Nighttime and Deep-space Icy Landscapes<\/a><\/p>\n Zeno Power Systems, Inc.<\/p>\n Washington, DC 20001-3701<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n Daniel Drew<\/p>\n Solid-state Propulsion for Autonomous Reconnaissance of Karst (SPARK)<\/a><\/p>\n University of Hawaii<\/p>\n Honolulu, HI 96822-2303<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n Gilly Elor<\/p>\n Power-over-Fiber to Enable a Lunar Underground eXplorer (LUX)<\/a><\/p>\n Stone Aerospace, Inc.<\/p>\n Del Valle, TX 78617-3017<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n Zhaoyan Liu<\/p>\n Quantum Wind Lidar Applications for Planetary and Earth Science Missions<\/a><\/p>\n NASA Ames Research Center<\/p>\n Moffett Field, CA 94034-0001<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n Jeff Nosanov<\/p>\n OBLIVIAN: Observing Black hole LIght Via Intensity cOrrelatioN<\/a><\/p>\n Orbital Velocity, LLC<\/p>\n Decatur, GA 30033-4151<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n Keunhan Park<\/p>\n Plasmon-Enhanced Radioisotope Thermophotovoltaic (PRTPV) Power Generation for Interstellar Missions<\/a><\/p>\n University of Utah<\/p>\n Salt Lake City 84112-1109<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n Austin Phoenix<\/p>\n ECLIPSE \u2013 Efficient variable Conductivity Lunar Insulator for Passive Surveyor Environmental Control<\/a><\/p>\n Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State<\/p>\n University, Blacksburg, VA 24060-5605<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n Marco Quadrelli<\/p>\n PRAXIS: Planetary Rings Autonomous EXploration with In-situ Sampling<\/a><\/p>\n NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory<\/p>\n Pasadena, CA 91109-8001<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n Michael Rubenstein<\/p>\n Actively Steerable Femtosat Constellations for In-situ Exploration of Saturn’s Rings, Atmosphere, and Magnetosphere<\/a><\/p>\n Northwestern University<\/p>\n Chicago Evanston, IL 60208-0001<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n Benjamin Schafer<\/p>\n Photophoretic Tracers for Near-Space Remote Sensing at 30-100 km Altitudes<\/a><\/p>\n University of California<\/p>\n Los Angeles, CA 90024-0001<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n David Smith<\/p>\n Robotically Assembled Electromagnetic Metamaterials for Long-Range Space Situational Awareness<\/a><\/p>\n Duke University<\/p>\n Durham, NC 27708-9976<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n Pablo Sobron<\/p>\n Interworld Slingshot Resource Surveys<\/a><\/p>\n SETI Institute<\/p>\n Mountain View, CA 94043-5203<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n Paul Stankus<\/p>\n Mapping Alien Continents: Achieving Optical VLBI for Exoplanet Imaging<\/a><\/p>\n Brookhaven Science Associates<\/p>\n Upton NY 11973-0001<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n Paul Stankus<\/p>\n Precision Astrometry Using Optically Independent Spacecraft for Graviational Wave Detection<\/a><\/p>\n Brookhaven Science Associates<\/p>\n Upton, NY 11973-0001<\/p>\n 2026 Phase I<\/p>\n Keep Exploring<\/p>\n Discover More NIAC Topics<\/p>\n \/Public Release. This material from the originating organization\/author(s) might be of the point-in-time nature, and edited for clarity, style and length. Mirage.News does not take institutional positions or sides, and all views, positions, and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author(s).View in full here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A collage of artist concepts highlighting the novel approaches proposed by the 2026 NIAC awardees for possible future…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":814782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,105],"class_list":["post-814781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}