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NASA is spearheading several initiatives focused on how technology could be harnessed to improve MRO and prepare the sector for next-generation aviation, such as advanced air mobility.

According to Steven Holz, associate project manager at NASA, part of the agency’s mission is to bolster the aviation sector, which includes MRO—even if it is rarely in the spotlight.

“MRO is often overlooked, even though it’s such a big industry, so we’re trying to preemptively tackle problems that might come down the line,” he tells Aviation Week. “If we can get people working with these new technologies earlier, thinking about these technologies or trained with them earlier, I think that it’ll be beneficial for the whole industry down the line.”

NASA’s Gateways to Blue Skies (GBS) Competition encourages student teams from post-secondary schools in the U.S. to come up with ideas about how technology could be used to solve an industry problem or challenge. In previous years, the competition has asked students to develop ideas for new aviation platforms to aid natural disaster response or which integrate new energy sources beyond electricity or sustainable aviation fuel. The competition has also asked students to consider how airports of the future could integrate new aviation technologies, such as advanced air mobility (AAM).

This year, the GBS Competition has turned its focus to developing technological solutions that address aviation maintenance challenges. Holz says this could range from predictive maintenance and inspection to identifying, fixing and preventing maintenance issues using technology. “We’re interested to see what the students come up with this year,” he says. “It is a different focus from the kind of future technology preparation [from previous challenges] to, ‘What can we do right now to help people in the maintenance industry?’”

Teams selected for the competition receive a $9,000 prize and move on to the second phase, where they present their concepts to judges from the agency, government and industry at NASA’s Langley Research Center. For this year’s competition, NASA’s judging panel includes TechOps specialists from American Airlines and Southwest. Proposals for this year’s competition are currently being evaluated, and the final stage will take place in May.

While winners get internship opportunities with NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD), Holz hopes the competition will also inspire students to consider MRO industry careers and connect with companies as they seek to advance their concepts for potential industrialization. He says some previous competitors have also applied for student-level grants to obtain additional resources from NASA and continue their work.

Grants are another initiative NASA has rolled out to advance the MRO industry. The agency previously issued several two-year University Innovation (UI) grants under the ARMD focused on preparing the MRO sector for new aviation technology.

In the first cohort of grants, Clemson University, the University of California, Davis, and Wichita State University were awarded funding to partner with aviation maintenance technician schools (AMTS) to identify challenges associated with next-generation aviation technologies, such as AAM, electric aviation, and new materials and structures.

“We know that sometimes MRO is not quite the first thing on people’s minds when technology is being developed, or when money is flowing around Silicon Valley, so we wanted to try to bridge the gap,” Holz says.

In addition to identifying challenges associated with these new technologies, the goal is to determine which skills must be taught in AMTS programs to prepare the current and future workforce. NASA plans to issue its next set of UI grants around May. “We’re hoping that, in a phase two, which hopefully would be more money than phase one, that they’d be able to take some of the things that they’ve identified and start coming up with some real-world stuff,” says Holz, such as simulated or physical systems technicians could use to train for new aviation technologies. “The sooner you get more people exposed to it and working on it, we think that’ll be good for hastening the timeline for getting the new technologies out there to integrate into the industry.”