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The exploration of space requires advanced technologies that will better enable both humans and robotic spacecraft to maintain a sustained lunar presence, support Mars exploration, operate in deep space, and explore other destinations in our solar system. Examples of such missions include robotic platforms like the Europa Lander or crewed missions with extended periods of dormancy such as Gateway. ...

This focus area includes the development of robotic systems and technologies (hardware and software) that will enable and enhance future space exploration, science, and service missions. In the coming decades, robotic systems will continue to change the way space is explored. Robots will be used in all mission phases: as independent explorers operating in environments too distant or hostile for ...

NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD), https://science.nasa.gov. encompasses research in the areas of Astrophysics, Earth Science, Heliophysics, Planetary Science, and Biological/Physical Sciences. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have provided NASA with recently updated Decadal surveys that are useful to identify technologies that are of interest to the above scien ...

In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) involves any hardware or operation that harnesses and utilizes ‘in-situ’ resources (natural and discarded) to create products and services for robotic and human exploration. Local resources include ‘natural’ resources found on extraterrestrial bodies such as water, solar wind-implanted volatiles (hydrogen, helium, carbon, nitrogen, etc.), vast quantities ...

NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD), https://science.nasa.gov/ encompasses research in the areas of Astrophysics, Earth Science, Heliophysics, and Planetary Science. The National Academies of Science has provided NASA with recently updated Decadal surveys that are useful to identify technologies that are of interest to the above science divisions. Those documents are available at https://www. ...

The SBIR focus area of Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) includes the suite of technologies for atmospheric entry as well as descent and landing on both atmospheric and non-atmospheric bodies. EDL mission segments are used in both robotic planetary science missions and human exploration missions beyond Low Earth Orbit, and many technologies have an application to emerging commercial space capabili ...

As NASA embarks on its mission for human exploration of the Moon as a step towards the human mission to Mars, taking full advantage of the potential offered by new and existing technologies will be critical to enabling sustainable Lunar and Mars presence. Manufacturing and construction approaches tailored to the Lunar environment will pave the way toward addressing challenges such as lowering the ...

Ground processing technology development prepares the agency to test, process, launch, and recover the next generation of rockets and spacecraft in support of NASA's exploration objectives by developing the necessary ground systems, infrastructure, and operational approaches for terrestrial and off-planet surface systems. This topic seeks innovative concepts and solutions for both addressing long- ...

This focus area includes tools and technologies that contribute to both the Advanced Air Vehicles Program (AAVP) and the Transformative Aeronautics Concepts Program (TACP) encompassing technologies in all six Strategic Thrusts within the NASA Aeronautics Mission Directorate (ARMD). AAVP develops the tools, technologies, and concepts that enable new generations of civil aircraft that are safer, mor ...

Digital Transformation is the strategic transformation of an organization's products, processes, and capabilities, driven and enabled by rapidly advancing and converging digital technologies, to dramatically enhance the organization's performance and efficiency. These advancing digital technologies include software, cloud computing, data management and analytics, artificial intelligence, mobile ac ...