NASA PICASSO Honors – NASA Research

NASA has awarded 10 new grants through the PICASSO program, aimed at developing innovative technologies for solar system exploration. The PICASSO23 projects will facilitate the exploration of diverse environments, from the hot surface of Mercury to the icy realms at the edges of the Solar System. These advancements intend to address fundamental questions regarding the solar system’s origins, the search for life, and the dynamics of planetary systems.

Key Awardees and Their Projects

1. Victor Abrahamsson (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

   • Developing a compact ion mobility spectrometer for Mars missions to analyze organic molecules in challenging locations.

2. David Blake (NASA’s Ames Research Center)

   • Creating new radioisotope power sources for instruments on spacecraft to study surface material compositions without contamination.

3. Luoth Chou (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)

   • Developing GALE, a modular micro gas chromatography system for modern gas separation targeting various molecular species in planetary science.

4. Evan Eshelman (Honeybee Robotics)

   • Building MONET, an in-situ mapping tool using spectroscopy to identify organic materials on planetary surfaces.

5. Omar Leon (University of Michigan)

   • Prototyping LVACCS, a system to measure and control the electric charge of lunar vehicles in space.

6. Xiang Li (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)

   • Creating LAMA, a lightweight mass spectrometer for chemical analysis of lunar samples.

7. Yamuna Phal (Colorado School of Mines)

   • Developing MIRACLE, a spectroscopic imager to study organic materials, enhancing the understanding of potential biosignatures.

8. Sofia Rahiminejad (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

   • Creating SHAKE, a MEMS seismometer for detecting seismic activity in extreme environments like Venus and Europa.

9. Xu Wang (University of Colorado)

   • Developing CEDA, a compact instrument to analyze electrostatic dust dynamics on small planetary bodies.

10. Roger Wiens (Purdue University)

    • Enhancing the LIBS technique for fine-scale compositional imaging of minerals, aiding in the study of Martian, lunar, and asteroidal materials.

These projects emphasize NASA’s commitment to advancing the tools and technologies necessary for understanding our solar system and the possibilities of life beyond Earth.