spacetoday.net: NASA selects first round of new NIAC grants

Posted: Tue, Aug 9, 2011, 8:43 AM ET (1243 GMT)
NASA announced Monday the winners of grants under a new program to develop innovative space technologies. NASA selected 30 proposals submitted to its new NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program to each receive approximately $100,000 to support future development. The selected technologies span a wide range of fields, from advanced propulsion systems to the use of cubesats for interplanetary missions to space solar power. The new NIAC program is patterned after an earlier effort with the same acronym, NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, that funded innovative technologies in the late 1990s through 2007. Reestablishment of a NIAC-like effort had been recommended by an independent panel after the original NIAC was closed down.