Fact of the Day: 24/01/2023

The future of space exploration is quickly changing, and new technology from NASA is helping speed up the process. How? The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program is a big contributor to the influx of new technology. This program mainly helps with funding for future resources and technologies. Here are a couple of the new ideas that NASA is helping fund: 

• Scientists have been investigating building a new type of spacecraft to explore the chemistry of some of Saturn’s moons. This spacecraft would be able to fly like a rocket and sail like a boat so it could traverse different types of terrain (par. 5). 
• Some engineers are planning to use many small satellites to help explore space. According to NASA.gov, “Precisely positioned in deep space, they could work together to detect radio emissions at low frequencies from the earliest epochs of the universe and measure magnetic fields of terrestrial exoplanets, helping identify planets outside the solar system that are rocky like Earth and Mars” (par. 6). 

Most of these ideas are still just concepts, but if they continue to get funding, they could be the future of space exploration.

Reference(s): https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-experimental-space-technology-concepts-for-initial-study 

Fact Author: Bailey W.

Fact Editor: Ace

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