NASA Invites Collaboration to Define Future of Air Travel

Now, thanks to technology developed by NASA Aeronautics and its research partners during the past decade or so, more of those dreams than ever before are nearly ready to be turned into

So, the big question is: what’s next?

While personal flying cars might sound like the next best thing since sliced bread, it may not be a product that is ready to offer for any number of reasons – but maybe it is? Perhaps wildfire management or emergency medical transport aircraft could come first? Or smaller package delivery drones? There are all kinds of possibilities.

Sky for All will include some specific examples of what the future will look like, but it’s not meant to provide a concept of operations for some large-scale air transportation system. Nor is “Sky for All” the name of a specific research program or project.

The idea is that information compiled for Sky for All will be able to guide decisions on where NASA should invest its research resources during the coming years.

This information also will help the Federal Aviation Administration make its research investment decisions as it pursues a similar effort known as “Charting Aviation’s Future: Operations in an Info-Centric National Airspace System (NAS).”

NASA has inarguably been responsible for developing some of the most important technologies of the past half-century. Indeed, NASA has a rich history

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Feb 25, 2022

University Teams ‘Take Off the Training Wheels’ to Develop Alternative Rovers

NASA has awarded nearly $1.2 million to seven university teams through the 2022 Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge to design, develop, and demonstrate innovative and cost-effective robotic systems that go beyond traditional wheeled rovers and move in different ways – including rovers that hop, slither, and roll.

As NASA expands its space exploration to more extreme terrain on the Moon, solutions to moving in harsh environments are integral. The BIG Idea Challenge spurs development of innovative technologies to meet the agency’s Artemis program goals to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before and use what we learn on the Moon to send humans to Mars.

The ability to move in different ways, or adaptive locomotive modality, is vital to enabling extreme terrain exploration. The capability to explore areas that are currently inaccessible will open new opportunities for science and in-situ resource utilization operations. The selected teams will develop integrated robotic solutions, with prototypes incorporating a minimal level of sensing, autonomy, and other necessary elements needed for a relevant test.

To achieve a long-term lunar presence, we need to fully understand the conditions and available resources on the Moon director of technology maturation within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at the agency's headquarters in Washington. “These student-designed alternative concepts offer an exciting opportunity to more deeply explore the Moon’s hard to reach areas - like caves and pits - so we can safely live on and explore Earth’s satellite.” 

The grants will be used to further develop and test the technologies over the next 10 months. Teams will present the results of their testing to a panel of NASA