NASA ranks private space tech challenges for 2024
Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles, California (SPX) July 24, 2024
This spring, NASA released a comprehensive document identifying nearly 200 technology areas that require further development to meet future exploration, science and other mission needs. The aerospace community was asked to rate the importance of these areas to consolidate the community’s technology challenges and guide NASA’s space technology development and investments.
Today, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) released its 2024 Civil Space Shortage Rankings document. The document consolidates input from NASA mission directorates and centers, industry associations of various sizes, government agencies, academia, and other stakeholders. STMD will use this initial list, as well as annual updates, to inform technology development projects and investments.
“Finding agreement on challenges across the aerospace industry will help us work together to find solutions,” said NASA Associate Administrator Jim Freeh. “This is fundamental to strengthening the nation’s technological capabilities to pave the way for new discoveries, economic opportunities and scientific breakthroughs that benefit humanity.”
The results highlight strong agreement among stakeholders on the 30 most significant deficiencies. Topping the list is the challenge of survival and operations on the Moon, where extreme temperature drops would hinder science experiments, rovers, habitats, and more. Potential solutions include new power systems, thermal management, and motor technologies. That is followed by the need for high-power energy generation and high-performance spaceflight computing on the Moon and Mars.
Other highly rated capability areas ranked in the top 20 include advanced habitation systems, autonomous systems and robotics, communications and navigation, power, avionics, and nuclear propulsion. Beyond the top quartile, stakeholder scores vary, reflecting the diverse interests and expertise of stakeholders. This variation highlights the importance of strategic investments across multiple sectors to maintain U.S. space technology leadership and drive economic growth.
STMD is currently assessing its current technology development efforts against the Consolidated List and identifying potential adjustments within its portfolio.
“This effort is a great example of our agencies working together to evaluate future architecture needs that will enable exploration and science for decades to come,” said Nujood Merancy, deputy assistant administrator for Strategy and Architecture within NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate.
The 2024 rankings are based on a total of 1,231 responses, including 769 internal inputs and 462 external inputs, of which 20 were pooled responses representing multiple individuals from the same organization. After calculating the average shortfall score for each organization, STMD grouped, summed, and averaged the scores for the nine stakeholder groups and applied pre-determined weights to create the overall rankings. This document also includes the ranking results for each stakeholder group based on their 2024 feedback.
The rankings are based on numerical scores and not on responses to open-ended questions, as NASA hopes qualitative feedback will provide further insight.
NASA will host a webinar to discuss the ranking process and results on July 26, 2024 at 2:00 pm EDT.
Register for the Stakeholder Webinar
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