Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES)-2025 is an ongoing “omnibus” or “umbrella” solicitation meaning that it includes many individual program elements each with its own topics and due dates. Refer to Table 3 of ROSES-25 for a list of those program elements. The ROSES-25 “Summary of Solicitation” is the front matter that sets the default backstop rules for each of the program elements in ROSES-25.
ROSES-25 Amendment 59 makes several additions, changes, and clarifications to the ROSES-25 Summary of Solicitation to conform with Agency and administration priorities, see Sections I, I(g), II(a), II(b), III(b), III(d), V(b)ii, VI(c) & VIII(b). New text is in bold.
Important and substantial revisions to 2 CFR 200, the government-wide guidance for grants and cooperative agreements are proposed to take effect October 1, 2026, see https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/29/2026-10817/regulation-for-federal-financial-assistance#h-8. Many types of currently allowable costs, such as but not limited to publications, research or events outside the United States, and domestic conferences may be restricted, denied, or may be allowable by legal exception or special award conditions only. Public comments on the revisions to 2 CFR 200 may be submitted until July 13, 2026, at https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/OMB-2026-0034-0001
A rare meteorite recovered from the Sahara Desert has revealed compelling evidence for a long-lost world that existed during the solar system’s earliest days. About 4.5 billion years ago, a large planetary body, potentially as large as the Moon or even Mars, orbited the Sun before colliding with another object and breaking apart. Now, researchers [...]
Researchers traced new undersea ecosystems of soft coral, sea anemones, sponges, and more to large rocks and mineral deposits ferried by icebergs from dry land to the Arctic floor.
Geologists recently converged on a site near Barstow, California, to ground-truth a mineral discovery made on public land by a NASA JPL sensor flying aboard a plane overhead.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Equipped with rock picks and hand lenses, a team of geoscientists deployed to the Mojave Desert recently to investigate a tantalizing “fingerprint” detected by a NASA sensor. Their target: a cache of topaz hiding in plain sight.
The geologists weren’t searching for gem-grade treasure. Rather, the presence of topaz could hint at a more valuable deposit below of something known as porphyry copper.
One of the world’s primary sources of copper, these deposits are left behind when magma and hot water from deep underground course through Earth’s crust, chemically transforming the surrounding rock. This tends to occur where one tectonic plate dives below another, known as a subduction zone, such as the North American Cordillera, which stretches from the Canadian Rockies to western Mexico.
California’s high desert stretches below a bright spring sky in April 2026. NASA and USGS scientists are using airborne remote sensing to home in on potential sources of critical minerals here and across the Western U.S.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
In addition to copper — the third most used metal in the world after steel and aluminum — the deposits can hold other critical minerals like molybdenum and tellurium, which are used in everything from steelmaking to solar panels. Finding the deposits isn’t easy. Geologists look for topaz because it forms under the same volcanic conditions.
For the team in the Mojave, the goal was to collect more evidence. That would require boots on the ground and a heavy bag of samples. The scientists who converged on the site included three experts from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Robert Green of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
“What we’re doing out here is geologic CSI,” said Green, referring to the investigative TV show, as he split open a weathered red rock to expose a sparkling core. “We’re looking for clues to reconstruct what happened here.”
Three-dimensional image cubes illustrate the volume of data captured by NASA imaging spectrometers. The front face shows an aerial view of the Mojave Desert. The colorful side panels reveal what no eye or camera can detect: the spectral fingerprints of minerals present in every pixel.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Next-generation mineral mapping
The sensor that detected the topaz deposit on public land near Barstow, California, was built at JPL. Called AVIRIS, short for Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer, it analyzes reflected sunlight and can be used to identify chemicals and minerals by their unique spectral fingerprint. The technology was pioneered in the early 1980s by a team that included Green, and space-hardened versions have explored the Moon, Mars, and other rocky bodies in the solar system in the decades since.
While its cousins study distant worlds aboard spacecraft, the AVIRIS line of sensors is advancing Earth science from aircraft. The latest model, AVIRIS-5, recently took to the skies for the first time as part of the NASA-USGS Geologic Earth Mapping Experiment (GEMx). The goal of GEMx is to identify sources of critical minerals across the American West, including in the waste rock of active and legacy mines. It is led by the USGS as part of its larger, nationwide initiative.
Carrying next-generation sensors, a high-altitude NASA ER-2 aircraft takes off from the agency’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, on March 31, 2026, to support the GEMx mineral mapping campaign.
NASA/Carla Thomas
Since 2023, GEMx flights have covered more than 386,000 square miles (1 million square kilometers) of American soil, including most of California.
Ground-truthing the sensor data can entail hot field work, scrambling over steep crags to uncover samples for lab analysis. While testing has confirmed the topaz discovery, determining if the Mojave site overlies a porphyry copper deposit will require intensive investigation using ground-penetrating equipment. But the AVIRIS finding shows how advanced NASA airborne sensing can help lead geologists to the metaphorical needle in a haystack, even in heavily explored Southern California.
“People have been prospecting this area for generations,” said Erik Tharalson, a USGS geologist. “But there’s a lot more to discover.”
High flyer
From the beginning, the GEMx mineral mapping campaign has been enabled by one of the highest-flying aircraft in NASA’s fleet: the ER‑2. It deployed on March 31 from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, to Colorado Springs Airport in Colorado.
“We deployed to Colorado Springs to maximize flight time for data collection needed in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas,” said John McGrath, ER‑2 project manager at NASA Armstrong.
By the conclusion of this deployment on June 5, the aircraft had completed 26 flights totaling more than 125 hours. Soaring at about 65,000 feet, the ER-2 can fly at high altitudes that allow it to collect broad‑area, high‑resolution spectral measurements in a single pass, supporting researchers studying mineral composition and surface processes.
In 2025, the aircraft flew 36 science missions, collecting more than 7 billion measurements over 200 flight hours. The data has contributed to the largest airborne surface mineralogy dataset gathered in a single NASA-USGS campaign.
The GEMx survey is led and funded by the USGS Earth Mapping Resources Initiative. Earth MRI is modernizing mapping the nation’s surface and subsurface to find new, critical, and other minerals. It is a partnership effort with 45 state geological surveys, federal agencies, private industry, tribes, universities, and others. The initiative will capitalize on both the technology developed by NASA for spectroscopic imaging, as well as the USGS expertise in analyzing the datasets, conducting field work, and deriving critical mineral information from them.
Geologists recently converged on a site near Barstow, California, to ground-truth a mineral discovery made on public land by a NASA JPL sensor flying aboard a plane overhead.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Equipped with rock picks and hand lenses, a team of geoscientists deployed to the Mojave Desert recently to investigate a tantalizing “fingerprint” detected by a NASA sensor. Their target: a cache of topaz hiding in plain sight.
The geologists weren’t searching for gem-grade treasure. Rather, the presence of topaz could hint at a more valuable deposit below of something known as porphyry copper.
One of the world’s primary sources of copper, these deposits are left behind when magma and hot water from deep underground course through Earth’s crust, chemically transforming the surrounding rock. This tends to occur where one tectonic plate dives below another, known as a subduction zone, such as the North American Cordillera, which stretches from the Canadian Rockies to western Mexico.
California’s high desert stretches below a bright spring sky in April 2026. NASA and USGS scientists are using airborne remote sensing to home in on potential sources of critical minerals here and across the Western U.S.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
In addition to copper — the third most used metal in the world after steel and aluminum — the deposits can hold other critical minerals like molybdenum and tellurium, which are used in everything from steelmaking to solar panels. Finding the deposits isn’t easy. Geologists look for topaz because it forms under the same volcanic conditions.
For the team in the Mojave, the goal was to collect more evidence. That would require boots on the ground and a heavy bag of samples. The scientists who converged on the site included three experts from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Robert Green of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
“What we’re doing out here is geologic CSI,” said Green, referring to the investigative TV show, as he split open a weathered red rock to expose a sparkling core. “We’re looking for clues to reconstruct what happened here.”
Three-dimensional image cubes illustrate the volume of data captured by NASA imaging spectrometers. The front face shows an aerial view of the Mojave Desert. The colorful side panels reveal what no eye or camera can detect: the spectral fingerprints of minerals present in every pixel.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Next-generation mineral mapping
The sensor that detected the topaz deposit on public land near Barstow, California, was built at JPL. Called AVIRIS, short for Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer, it analyzes reflected sunlight and can be used to identify chemicals and minerals by their unique spectral fingerprint. The technology was pioneered in the early 1980s by a team that included Green, and space-hardened versions have explored the Moon, Mars, and other rocky bodies in the solar system in the decades since.
While its cousins study distant worlds aboard spacecraft, the AVIRIS line of sensors is advancing Earth science from aircraft. The latest model, AVIRIS-5, recently took to the skies for the first time as part of the NASA-USGS Geologic Earth Mapping Experiment (GEMx). The goal of GEMx is to identify sources of critical minerals across the American West, including in the waste rock of active and legacy mines. It is led by the USGS as part of its larger, nationwide initiative.
Carrying next-generation sensors, a high-altitude NASA ER-2 aircraft takes off from the agency’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, on March 31, 2026, to support the GEMx mineral mapping campaign.
NASA/Carla Thomas
Since 2023, GEMx flights have covered more than 386,000 square miles (1 million square kilometers) of American soil, including most of California.
Ground-truthing the sensor data can entail hot field work, scrambling over steep crags to uncover samples for lab analysis. While testing has confirmed the topaz discovery, determining if the Mojave site overlies a porphyry copper deposit will require intensive investigation using ground-penetrating equipment. But the AVIRIS finding shows how advanced NASA airborne sensing can help lead geologists to the metaphorical needle in a haystack, even in heavily explored Southern California.
“People have been prospecting this area for generations,” said Erik Tharalson, a USGS geologist. “But there’s a lot more to discover.”
High flyer
From the beginning, the GEMx mineral mapping campaign has been enabled by one of the highest-flying aircraft in NASA’s fleet: the ER‑2. It deployed on March 31 from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, to Colorado Springs Airport in Colorado.
“We deployed to Colorado Springs to maximize flight time for data collection needed in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas,” said John McGrath, ER‑2 project manager at NASA Armstrong.
By the conclusion of this deployment on June 5, the aircraft had completed 26 flights totaling more than 125 hours. Soaring at about 65,000 feet, the ER-2 can fly at high altitudes that allow it to collect broad‑area, high‑resolution spectral measurements in a single pass, supporting researchers studying mineral composition and surface processes.
In 2025, the aircraft flew 36 science missions, collecting more than 7 billion measurements over 200 flight hours. The data has contributed to the largest airborne surface mineralogy dataset gathered in a single NASA-USGS campaign.
The GEMx survey is led and funded by the USGS Earth Mapping Resources Initiative. Earth MRI is modernizing mapping the nation’s surface and subsurface to find new, critical, and other minerals. It is a partnership effort with 45 state geological surveys, federal agencies, private industry, tribes, universities, and others. The initiative will capitalize on both the technology developed by NASA for spectroscopic imaging, as well as the USGS expertise in analyzing the datasets, conducting field work, and deriving critical mineral information from them.
Ancient asteroid impacts may have done more than reshape Earth’s surface. For decades, asteroid impacts have been viewed mainly as agents of destruction. But on the young Earth, they may have done something far more surprising: helped create some of the planet’s first habitable environments. A new study from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) suggests that [...]
Transforming NASA’s trusted Earth science into powerful business intelligence
Earth Science Private Sector Engagement
NASA Earth science data, tools, and expertise drive economic innovation by providing industry with trusted insights to accurately forecast risk, optimize operations, and advance next-generation business solutions. By connecting, informing, and partnering with businesses, NASA’s Private Sector Engagement Office unlocks new opportunities to reinforce the use of Earth observations in existing markets and broaden adoption across emerging industry sectors, empowering organizations to build powerful and resilient solutions for the future.
INNOVATE is NASA’s innovation funding program designed to accelerate the translation of Earth science into real-world applications. Selected teams receive access to NASA funding, data, and expertise to develop solutions that address commercial and societal challenges. This opportunity is open through August 31, 2026.
Investigators & Partners: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; University of Colorado; University of Wisconsin-Madison; University of Connecticut; Swiss Re; Munich Re; Eversource
An AI-powered flood intelligence platform that combines NASA Earth observations with advanced modeling to deliver real-time flood forecasts and impact assessments, including Federal Emergency Management Agency and NOAA end users.
Designed with insurers and utilities to improve disaster response, risk management, and resilience.
Operational Risk Forecasting for AI Infrastructure
Investigators & Partners: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; Universities Space Research Association; Meta; Uptime Institute; Open-IX
A first-of-its-kind system that uses NASA Earth observations to forecast operational risks to data centers, power systems, and water resources up to 14 days in advance.
Helps critical infrastructure operators anticipate disruptions before they occur.
Fire & Risk Modeling for Property Insurance
Investigators & Partners: National Science Foundation; National Center for Atmospheric Research; Mercury Insurance
A next-generation wildfire risk platform combining NASA Earth science, physics-based modeling, and AI to improve insurance underwriting and community resilience.
Developed with industry partners to better understand and manage growing wildfire risks.
Next-Generation Food Security Early Warning System
Investigators & Partners: Space Science Institute; Chapman University; World Food Program; Microinsurance Catastrophe Risk Organization
An advanced agricultural monitoring system that uses NASA Earth observations to detect food security risks months before traditional warning systems.
Supports insurers, humanitarian organizations, and agribusinesses with earlier, more actionable insights.
AI-Powered Wildfire Risk Intelligence for Utilities
Investigators & Partners: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; OpalAI; Pacific Gas & Electric; Los Angeles Department of Water & Power
An AI-enabled wildfire intelligence platform that helps utilities identify asset-level wildfire risks and improve operational decision-making.
Designed to reduce outages, strengthen grid resilience, and protect communities.
Early Warning & Transparency for Forest Supply Chains
Investigators & Partners: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; University of Maryland; Science Systems and Applications Inc.; Chainparency
A NASA-enabled monitoring and forecasting platform that helps forestry and wood-product industries track forest health, detect emerging risks, and improve supply chain transparency.
Supports more resilient and sustainable forest management at scale.
How NASA Helps Industry
How NASA supports agribusiness
Every day, farmers, food companies, and agricultural producers rely on timely, trusted information to manage their crops, land, water, and supply chains. NASA develops technology and missions to observe agricultural landscapes from space, informing optimal time and location for planting, monitoring of plant growth, best times for harvest, and market readiness assessments. U.S. and international partners use this information to support food security, stabilize markets, and strengthen productive farming.
From space, NASA tracks soil moisture, groundwater, crop condition, water use, heat stress, precipitation, and land change, while also supporting field-level tools and trusted partnerships with producers and agricultural organizations. By transforming satellite data into practical insights, NASA helps agribusiness to anticipate challenges, improve productivity, manage vital resources, and safeguard food systems.
The NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite captured an image of northeastern North Dakota on Aug. 23, 2025. The darker agricultural plots are plowed and unplanted fields, while the lighter colors represent the presence of pasture or crops. Circular patterns indicate the use of center-pivot irrigation.
NASA JPL
How NASA helps energy & utility companies
Energy providers, utilities, and infrastructure operators need trusted Earth information to plan for demand, protect assets, and keep essential services reliable. NASA Earth science supports decisions related to solar and meteorological resources, extreme heat, wildfire, air quality, flooding, drought, and land movement.
The Prediction Of Worldwide Energy Resources (POWER) project provides solar and meteorological data used by energy, building, and infrastructure communities. NASA Earth insights also help utility companies understand risks to grids, water systems, pipelines, and other critical assets and the Agency engages with partners such as the Center for Weather Innovation, Smart Energy and Resilience to advance Earth observation capabilities for the energy sector. Through data, training, stakeholder engagement, and partnerships, NASA equips energy and utility leaders with trusted information to strengthen resilience and support reliable operations.
This Black Marble data visualization shows how nighttime light changed year over year between 2014 and 2022 around the globe. Derived from satellite imagery taken daily over the past decade, golden areas featured brightening, purple areas featured dimming, and white areas experienced both kinds of changes.
NASA Scientific Visualization Studio
How NASA supports insurance & reinsurance
Insurance and reinsurance organizations depend on trusted information to understand hazards, price risk, support claims, and plan for changing risk exposure. NASA Earth science provides observations, models, and long-term records that help characterize events such as wildfire, flood, heat, drought, storms, land change, and infrastructure impacts.
NASA is engaging with the insurance and reinsurance community to better understand where Earth observations can support underwriting, catastrophe modeling, parametric products, claims response, and resilience planning. By participating in pre-competitive industry coalitions like the Center for Innovation in Risk, Catastrophes, and Decisions, as well as sector trainings and industry engagement, NASA helps insurers and reinsurers connect trusted Earth science with the decisions that shape risk, affordability, and recovery.
After unleashing dozens of destructive tornadoes, a slow-moving storm system dumped heavy rain across the U.S. Midwest and Southeast in early April 2025. A break in the clouds on April 7, 2025, revealed widespread flooding, shown in this image acquired by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite on the NOAA-21 satellite.
NASA Earth Observatory
How NASA helps the finance sector
Financial institutions, investors, and analysts need reliable information to understand physical risk, market exposure, and long-term change. NASA Earth science provides trusted data and models that help organizations to assess risk across assets, portfolios, and supply chains, including wildfire, heat, flood, land change, and infrastructure impacts.
NASA’s engagement with the finance sector focuses on helping users move from awareness to application, identifying relevant datasets, understanding uncertainty, and connecting Earth observations to real business decisions. Through training, collaborative sessions, and sector partnerships, NASA is working to make Earth science more accessible to financial decision-makers seeking trusted, science-based insights.
This screen capture from FIRMS shows Landsat active fire imagery of the Double Creek Fire in Oregon on September 10, 2022. The Landsat Active Fire and Thermal Anomalies product is generated from the Landsat Operational Land Imager (OLI).
NASA LANCE
How NASA helps mining and exploration
Mining and exploration companies rely on trusted geoscience information to understand landscapes, manage risk, and make decisions across the mineral resource life cycle. NASA Earth science observations can support characterization of terrain, land cover, water resources, surface change, environmental conditions, operational risks, and long-term landscape dynamics.
NASA is engaging with the mining and exploration community to better connect Earth observations with industry needs, from early exploration and resource assessment to operations, closure, and reclamation. Through participation in pre-competitive industry efforts such as the Center to Advance the Science of Exploration to Reclamation in Mining, as well as broader technical exchange and stakeholder engagement, NASA helps bring trusted data, models, and Earth system science into decisions that support responsible resource development.
Various minerals are revealed in vibrant detail in this sample mineral map of Cuprite, Nevada, following processing of imaging spectrometer data.
USGS
FEbruary 2026
Industry Summit Report
The NASA Earth Science Industry Summit, hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on February 2, 2026, served as a strategic forum to explore how NASA’s Earth Science enterprise contributes to the engines of the American economy and how public and private sectors can work together to unlock greater opportunities in Earth observation.
Explore the summary report for key reflections and takeaways, representing the perspectives of more than 180 participants across finance, insurance, agriculture, energy, utilities, and more.
Earthdata is your gateway to find, access, visualize, and download NASA Earth science data. Browse the data catalog, search by topic, discover learning resources including tutorials and trainings, and more.
NASA's Applied Remote Sensing Training Program (ARSET) teaches users how to use remote sensing data for a range of applications. ARSET trainings are available for all levels of experience at no cost, both in person and online.
The Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) tracks active fires and hotspots worldwide to support response, risk monitoring, and operational awareness.
Flood Water Monitoring
NASA’s Land, Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for Earth observation (LANCE) provides near real-time flood products, showing flooding and surface water changes to support exposure, claims, and resilience planning.
Economic & Human Activity
Night-time lights, visible with NASA’s Black Marble products, are used to monitor economic indicators, human activity, outages, infrastructure disruptions, and disaster recovery.
Heat & Temperature Insights
The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) instrument detects surface heat, crop water stress, urban heat, and thermal conditions affecting assets and operations.
Land Surface Change & Risk
The OPERA Surface Displacement (DISP) product suite identifies land surface movement from processes such as sinkholes, earthquakes, and landslides, supporting risk assessment for infrastructure and critical assets.
Long-Term Risk Projection
NASA Earth eXchange Global Daily Downscaled Projections (NEX-GDDP) provides historical baselines and future climate scenarios for asset, portfolio, and resilience planning.
Partnerships & Collaboration
NASA offers 60 years of experience in advanced engineering and testing capabilities, cutting edge research and technology development, as well as unique assets such as land, facilities and laboratories for use by commercial industries, academic institutions, U.S. government agencies and international entities.
Partnerships Front Door
Discover how NASA works with industry, academic, and non-profit partners to advance mutual goals through through strategic, non-procurement partnerships.
Eligible organizations that incorporate NASA data into their products, services, or research can gain significant value by displaying the NASA Data Insignia.
Submit your abstract for “Advancing Weather and Environmental Science Through NASA and NOAA Commercial Satellite Data Programs,” a joint session hosted by NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) program, in partnership with the NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) Commercial Data Program (CDP).
The session is part of the 23rd Symposium on Operational Environmental Satellite Systems, which will take place at the 2027 American Meteorological Society (AMS) Annual Meeting January 10-14 in Denver, Colorado. It will examine the growing capabilities of commercial Earth observation providers that are creating new opportunities to advance weather research, operational forecasting, and environmental science applications.
NASA’s CSDA program and NESDIS’s CDP collaborate to expand federal access to commercial satellite data and accelerate its use in both research and operational applications.
The CSDA program supports the scientific community by evaluating and acquiring diverse commercial datasets, including optical, Synthetic Aperture Radar, Global Navigation Satellite System Radio Occultation and Reflectometry, methane, precipitation, and Digital Elevation/Terrain Models for modeling, hazard monitoring, climate studies, and applied research.
Similarly, the CDP operationalizes commercial space-based environmental data, with demonstrated impacts from assimilated observations in weather forecasting and space weather applications. It also conducts pilot projects and transitions the piloted data to operations.
Together, the CSDA and CDP strengthen the nation’s weather enterprise by enabling innovative research, closing observational gaps, and integrating commercial data into real-world forecasting and decision support applications.
To submit an abstract or for additional information about the abstract submission process, visit the symposium’s website.
Submit your abstract for “Advancing Weather and Environmental Science Through NASA and NOAA Commercial Satellite Data Programs,” a joint session hosted by NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) program, in partnership with the NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) Commercial Data Program (CDP).
The session is part of the 23rd Symposium on Operational Environmental Satellite Systems, which will take place at the 2027 American Meteorological Society (AMS) Annual Meeting January 10-14 in Denver, Colorado. It will examine the growing capabilities of commercial Earth observation providers that are creating new opportunities to advance weather research, operational forecasting, and environmental science applications.
NASA’s CSDA program and NESDIS’s CDP collaborate to expand federal access to commercial satellite data and accelerate its use in both research and operational applications.
The CSDA program supports the scientific community by evaluating and acquiring diverse commercial datasets, including optical, Synthetic Aperture Radar, Global Navigation Satellite System Radio Occultation and Reflectometry, methane, precipitation, and Digital Elevation/Terrain Models for modeling, hazard monitoring, climate studies, and applied research.
Similarly, the CDP operationalizes commercial space-based environmental data, with demonstrated impacts from assimilated observations in weather forecasting and space weather applications. It also conducts pilot projects and transitions the piloted data to operations.
Together, the CSDA and CDP strengthen the nation’s weather enterprise by enabling innovative research, closing observational gaps, and integrating commercial data into real-world forecasting and decision support applications.
To submit an abstract or for additional information about the abstract submission process, visit the symposium’s website.
Two of the three SmallSats for NASA’s INCUS mission, including the one shown here, have completed assembly and testing in preparation for shipment to NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia for a 2027 launch. From low Earth orbit the satellites will observe the dynamics of tropical convective storms.
Blue Canyon Technologies
Teams working on NASA’s INCUS (Investigation of Convective Updrafts) mission, the first space-based survey of the dynamics of tropical convective storms, have completed assembly and tested two of the mission’s small satellites, or SmallSats. Testing continues on the third SmallSat and is scheduled for completion no earlier than September in advance of a 2027 launch.
The three satellites will fly in tight coordination in low Earth orbit, with the first and second satellites separated by 30 seconds and the second and third satellite by 90 seconds.
Characterized by the sudden and intense lifting of large amounts of air and water, tropical convective storms provide more than half of the world’s precipitation, a crucial source of life-supporting fresh water. But they also produce severe weather, which can increase risks to life and property. The INCUS mission will help improve understanding of where, when, and why convective storms form.
Led by principal investigator Sue van den Heever of Colorado State University in Fort Collins, INCUS will use spaceborne radar instruments developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to observe the vertical motion of air and water, known as convective mass flux, as storms develop and evolve. The mission will also explore how environmental factors such as air temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed, and wind direction correlate with that movement.
These insights will improve storm forecasting, potentially mitigating loss of life and property damage in affected communities, by helping decision-makers plan for and respond to severe weather events and manage freshwater supplies.
Teams at NASA JPL built each INCUS satellite’s radar, which were combined with a deployable mesh radar reflector made by Tendeg in Louisville, Colorado. The middle satellite also carries a microwave radiometer, also made at NASA JPL, that provides spatial context to the vertical precipitation profiles provided by the radars.
The three assemblies shipped in late 2025 and early 2026 to Blue Canyon Technologies in Lafayette, Colorado, where they were integrated with Blue Canyon’s spacecraft buses. The first two satellites, also called observatories, have successfully undergone vibration and thermal vacuum testing to ensure they will be able to withstand the jostling of launch and the extreme temperatures of space.
These two observatories also shipped to Tendeg, where teams successfully performed test deployments of the reflectors. Then they returned to Blue Canyon for additional testing. They’ll remain in storage before heading out next year to the launch site at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
Funded through the Earth Venture Mission-3 acquisition under NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder Program, INCUS is one of several missions fulfilling the clouds, convection, and precipitation requirements of NASA’s Earth System Observatory, a series of interconnected missions set to study our home planet’s dynamic natural systems and how they interact. The mission is also part of FALCON (Fleet for the Atmosphere Linking Commercial Observations with NASA), a fleet of atmosphere-observing satellites that will combine hardware contributions from NASA centers, universities, and commercial partners.
Researchers from Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology and Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology have identified how bacteria can adapt to toxic metals released from hydrothermal vents. The study focused on Nitratiruptor sp. SB155-2, a species of bacteria isolated from vents in the Okinawa Trough. The researchers found that bacteria use transporter proteins […]
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