Space Vehicles

In order to successfully develop innovative space vehicles and systems and undertake long duration missions, conventional materials need to be improved with regard to performance by several orders of magnitude, a task difficult to achieve using current technologies. New concepts and approaches are required to design, develop, and fabricate materials with multiple capabilities including strength (stiffness and toughness), sensing/actuating, and self-healing while yet having a multi-functional aspect for savings in cost, size, mass and power.