NASA Announces 2026 NIAC Phase I Award Winners for Advanced Space Concepts

NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program selected 18 projects for its 2026 Phase I grants, allocating a total of $3.2 million. Each award provides up to $175,000 for a nine‑month feasibility study of visionary technologies aimed at future lunar, Martian and deep‑space missions.

The portfolio spans a wide range of ultra‑novel ideas, including Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay’s “DimSun” proposal to use a controllable dust cloud for solar‑radiation management, a coilable stacked solar‑sail system for high‑Δv missions, and a lunar underground explorer (LUX) that would operate in permanently shadowed regions. Other concepts feature radioisotope‑heated EVA suits for the Moon’s two‑week nights, a swarm of 10,000 femtosatellites to map Saturn’s rings, and hardened instrumentation for long‑duration Venus exploration.

NIAC director Greg Stover said the awards “represent the kind of breakthrough innovation needed to sustain a permanent lunar presence and push humanity toward Mars and beyond.” The selected projects are early‑stage investigations and are not yet official NASA missions, but they could shape the agency’s future aerospace economy.