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Headline: NASA Funds Magnetic Moon Robots That Would Levitate Over A Flexible Track

Caption: THIS PICTURE: This illustration shows a conceptual lunar railway system called FLOAT (Flexible Levitation on a Track) that has been selected for an early-stage feasibility study within the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program. ..... STORY: NASA has greenlit an infrastructure idea Thursday (25 Feb) for autonomously transporting cargo on the Moon using magnetic robots that would levitate over a flexible track. It is one of four advanced space concepts from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory that have been selected to receive grants for further research and development. Early-stage research into futuristic space ideas – a lunar levitation track system, light bending lunar power system, method for making soil from asteroid material, and more – could help revolutionise NASA’s technology toolbox and pioneer new kinds of missions. More than a dozen researchers from within the agency, industry, and academia will receive grants from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program to study their concepts’ feasibility. “NIAC Fellows are known to dream big, proposing technologies that may appear to border science fiction and are unlike research being funded by other agency programs,” said Jenn Gustetic, director of early-stage innovations and partnerships within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD). “We don’t expect them all to come to fruition but recognize that providing a small amount of seed-funding for early research could benefit NASA greatly in the long run.”

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