Participants in NASA's Minority Serving Institutions Space Accelerator program surround a full-scale model of NASA's Mars Ingenuity Helicopter as engineer Michael Starch discusses the mission. The group was visiting NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Aug. 18, 2022.

These participants were members of three teams named as awardees in the first-of-its-kind accelerator program, a competition to advance the NASA's goals and meet its needs in the areas of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and development of autonomous systems while also engaging underrepresented academic institutions and reducing barriers for them to submit ideas to the agency. The program provides funding, business training through a 10-week accelerator course, and mentorship to help the teams develop ideas for systems that can operate without human oversight for future science missions in space and on Earth.

The teams were made up of professors and students from Fayetteville State University in North Carolina, University of Massachusetts Boston, and California State University, Northridge. At the conclusion of the accelerator, participants arrived in Southern California for a variety of events, including two days at JPL.

The program is a partnership between NASA's Science Mission Directorate, its Earth Science Technology Office, the Minority University Research Education Project within the agency's Office of STEM Engagement, JPL, and Starburst, a global aerospace accelerator company based in Los Angeles.