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By NASA
Freelancer NASA’s Sustainable Business Model Challenge is looking for entrepreneurs, startups, and researchers to leverage the agency’s publicly available Earth system science data to develop commercial solutions for climate challenges.
This opportunity, with a submission deadline of June 13, bridges the gap between vast climate data and actionable solutions by inviting solvers to transform data into sustainable business models that support climate resilience and decision-making.
“Creative, outcome-driven entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of our country’s economy, and we’re excited to see the sustainable climate solutions they’re able to come up with when working closely with NASA’s vast resources and data,” said Jason L. Kessler, program executive for the NASA Small Business Innovation Research / Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) program, which is sponsoring the challenge.
Through the Sustainable Business Model Challenge, NASA aims to foster a new set of sustainable enterprises capable of turning climate insights into tangible market-ready services, ultimately contributing to a more resilient future for vulnerable communities, businesses, and ecosystems. NASA is committed to broadening participation in its solicitations and fostering technology advancements.
By engaging new entrepreneurs, the challenge serves as a pathway to NASA’s SBIR/STTR program, helping scale solutions to advance the global response to climate change and encourage a more sustainable future. From its vantage point in space, NASA holds a wealth of data that can inform new approaches to climate adaptation and mitigation.
Participants will submit a 10-page business concept paper that includes details on how they will incorporate NASA climate or Earth system data to deliver a product or service. Up to ten winning teams will receive $10,000 each, along with admission to a 10-week capability development training designed to strengthen any future proposals for potential NASA funding.
NASA’s SBIR/STTR program, managed by the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, is part of America’s Seed Fund, the nation’s largest source of early-stage funding for innovative technologies. Through this program, entrepreneurs, startups, and small businesses with less than 500 employees can receive funding and non-monetary support to build, mature, and commercialize their technologies, advancing NASA missions and advancing the nations aerospace economy.
Ensemble is hosting the challenge on behalf of NASA. The NASA Tournament Lab, part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program in the Space Technology Mission Directorate, manages the challenge. The program supports global public competitions and crowdsourcing as tools to advance NASA research and development and other mission needs.
The deadline to participate in NASA’s Sustainable Business Model Challenge is June 13, 2025.
For more information about the challenge, visit: https://nasabusinesschallenge.org/
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By NASA
NASA, ESA, and M. Wong (University of California – Berkeley); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the planet Jupiter in a color composite of ultraviolet wavelengths. Released on Nov. 3, 2023, in honor of Jupiter reaching opposition, which occurs when the planet and the Sun are in opposite sides of the sky, this view of the gas giant planet includes the iconic, massive storm called the “Great Red Spot.” Though the storm appears red to the human eye, in this ultraviolet image it appears darker because high altitude haze particles absorb light at these wavelengths. The reddish, wavy polar hazes are absorbing slightly less of this light due to differences in either particle size, composition, or altitude.
Learn more about Hubble and how this type of data can help us learn more about our universe.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Wong (University of California – Berkeley); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
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By NASA
3 Min Read NASA Scientists Find New Human-Caused Shifts in Global Water Cycle
Cracked mud and salt on the valley floor in Death Valley National Park in California can become a reflective pool after rains. (File photo) Credits: NPS/Kurt Moses In a recently published paper, NASA scientists use nearly 20 years of observations to show that the global water cycle is shifting in unprecedented ways. The majority of those shifts are driven by activities such as agriculture and could have impacts on ecosystems and water management, especially in certain regions.
“We established with data assimilation that human intervention in the global water cycle is more significant than we thought,” said Sujay Kumar, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and a co-author of the paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The shifts have implications for people all over the world. Water management practices, such as designing infrastructure for floods or developing drought indicators for early warning systems, are often based on assumptions that the water cycle fluctuates only within a certain range, said Wanshu Nie, a research scientist at NASA Goddard and lead author of the paper.
“This may no longer hold true for some regions,” Nie said. “We hope that this research will serve as a guide map for improving how we assess water resources variability and plan for sustainable resource management, especially in areas where these changes are most significant.”
One example of the human impacts on the water cycle is in North China, which is experiencing an ongoing drought. But vegetation in many areas continues to thrive, partially because producers continue to irrigate their land by pumping more water from groundwater storage, Kumar said. Such interrelated human interventions often lead to complex effects on other water cycle variables, such as evapotranspiration and runoff.
Nie and her colleagues focused on three different kinds of shifts or changes in the cycle: first, a trend, such as a decrease in water in a groundwater reservoir; second, a shift in seasonality, like the typical growing season starting earlier in the year, or an earlier snowmelt; and third a change in extreme events, like “100-year floods” happening more frequently.
The scientists gathered remote sensing data from 2003 to 2020 from several different NASA satellite sources: the Global Precipitation Measurement mission satellite for precipitation data, a soil moisture dataset from the European Space Agency’s Climate Change Initiative, and the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites for terrestrial water storage data. They also used products from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer satellite instrument to provide information on vegetation health.
“This paper combines several years of our team’s effort in developing capabilities on satellite data analysis, allowing us to precisely simulate continental water fluxes and storages across the planet,” said Augusto Getirana, a research scientist at NASA Goddard and a co-author of the paper.
The study results suggest that Earth system models used to simulate the future global water cycle should evolve to integrate the ongoing effects of human activities. With more data and improved models, producers and water resource managers could understand and effectively plan for what the “new normal” of their local water situation looks like, Nie said.
By Erica McNamee
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
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Last Updated Jan 16, 2025 EditorKate D. RamsayerContactKate D. Ramsayerkate.d.ramsayer@nasa.gov Related Terms
Earth Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Goddard Space Flight Center Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Water & Energy Cycle Explore More
4 min read NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement Mission: 10 years, 10 stories
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By Space Force
Space Launch Delta 45 supported the maiden flight for Blue Origin’s New Glenn from Space Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
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By NASA
Creating a golden streak in the night sky, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission One lander soars upward after liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, Jan. 15, as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. The Blue Ghost lander will carry 10 NASA science and technology instruments to the lunar surface to further understand the Moon and help prepare for future human missions.Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux A suite of NASA scientific investigations and technology demonstrations is on its way to our nearest celestial neighbor aboard a commercial spacecraft, where they will provide insights into the Moon’s environment and test technologies to support future astronauts landing safely on the lunar surface under the agency’s Artemis campaign.
Carrying science and tech on Firefly Aerospace’s first CLPS or Commercial Lunar Payload Services flight for NASA, Blue Ghost Mission 1 launched at 1:11 a.m. EST aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The company is targeting a lunar landing on Sunday, March 2.
“This mission embodies the bold spirit of NASA’s Artemis campaign – a campaign driven by scientific exploration and discovery,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. “Each flight we’re part of is vital step in the larger blueprint to establish a responsible, sustained human presence at the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Each scientific instrument and technology demonstration brings us closer to realizing our vision. Congratulations to the NASA, Firefly, and SpaceX teams on this successful launch.”
Once on the Moon, NASA will test and demonstrate lunar drilling technology, regolith (lunar rocks and soil) sample collection capabilities, global navigation satellite system abilities, radiation tolerant computing, and lunar dust mitigation methods. The data captured could also benefit humans on Earth by providing insights into how space weather and other cosmic forces impact our home planet.
“NASA leads the world in space exploration, and American companies are a critical part of bringing humanity back to the Moon,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We learned many lessons during the Apollo Era which informed the technological and science demonstrations aboard Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 – ensuring the safety and health of our future science instruments, spacecraft, and, most importantly, our astronauts on the lunar surface. I am excited to see the incredible science and technological data Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 will deliver in the days to come.”
As part of NASA’s modern lunar exploration activities, CLPS deliveries to the Moon will help humanity better understand planetary processes and evolution, search for water and other resources, and support long-term, sustainable human exploration of the Moon in preparation for the first human mission to Mars.
There are 10 NASA payloads flying on this flight:
Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER) will characterize heat flow from the interior of the Moon by measuring the thermal gradient and conductivity of the lunar subsurface. It will take several measurements to about a 10-foot final depth using pneumatic drilling technology with a custom heat flow needle instrument at its tip. Lead organization: Texas Tech University Lunar PlanetVac (LPV) is designed to collect regolith samples from the lunar surface using a burst of compressed gas to drive the regolith into a sample chamber for collection and analysis by various instruments. Additional instrumentation will then transmit the results back to Earth. Lead organization: Honeybee Robotics Next Generation Lunar Retroreflector (NGLR) serves as a target for lasers on Earth to precisely measure the distance between Earth and the Moon. The retroreflector that will fly on this mission could also collect data to understand various aspects of the lunar interior and address fundamental physics questions. Lead organization: University of Maryland Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC) will determine how lunar regolith sticks to a range of materials exposed to the Moon’s environment throughout the lunar day. The RAC instrument will measure accumulation rates of lunar regolith on the surfaces of several materials including solar cells, optical systems, coatings, and sensors through imaging to determine their ability to repel or shed lunar dust. The data captured will allow the industry to test, improve, and protect spacecraft, spacesuits, and habitats from abrasive regolith. Lead organization: Aegis Aerospace Radiation Tolerant Computer (RadPC) will demonstrate a computer that can recover from faults caused by ionizing radiation. Several RadPC prototypes have been tested aboard the International Space Station and Earth-orbiting satellites, but now will demonstrate the computer’s ability to withstand space radiation as it passes through Earth’s radiation belts, while in transit to the Moon, and on the lunar surface. Lead organization: Montana State University Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) is an active dust mitigation technology that uses electric fields to move and prevent hazardous lunar dust accumulation on surfaces. The EDS technology is designed to lift, transport, and remove particles from surfaces with no moving parts. Multiple tests will demonstrate the feasibility of the self-cleaning glasses and thermal radiator surfaces on the Moon. In the event the surfaces do not receive dust during landing, EDS has the capability to re-dust itself using the same technology. Lead organization: NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI) will capture a series of X-ray images to study the interaction of solar wind and the Earth’s magnetic field that drives geomagnetic disturbances and storms. Deployed and operated on the lunar surface, this instrument will provide the first global images showing the edge of Earth’s magnetic field for critical insights into how space weather and other cosmic forces surrounding our planet impact it. Lead organizations: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Boston University, and Johns Hopkins University Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) will characterize the structure and composition of the Moon’s mantle by measuring electric and magnetic fields. This investigation will help determine the Moon’s temperature structure and thermal evolution to understand how the Moon has cooled and chemically differentiated since it formed. Lead organization: Southwest Research Institute Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) will demonstrate the possibility of acquiring and tracking signals from Global Navigation Satellite System constellations, specifically GPS and Galileo, during transit to the Moon, during lunar orbit, and on the lunar surface. If successful, LuGRE will be the first pathfinder for future lunar spacecraft to use existing Earth-based navigation constellations to autonomously and accurately estimate their position, velocity, and time. Lead organizations: NASA Goddard, Italian Space Agency Stereo Camera for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS) will use stereo imaging photogrammetry to capture the impact of rocket plume on lunar regolith as the lander descends on the Moon’s surface. The high-resolution stereo images will aid in creating models to predict lunar regolith erosion, which is an important task as bigger, heavier payloads are delivered to the Moon in close proximity to each other. This instrument also flew on Intuitive Machine’s first CLPS delivery. Lead organization: NASA’s Langley Research Center “With 10 NASA science and technology instruments launching to the Moon, this is the largest CLPS delivery to date, and we are proud of the teams that have gotten us to this point,” said Chris Culbert, program manager for the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “We will follow this latest CLPS delivery with more in 2025 and later years. American innovation and interest to the Moon continues to grow, and NASA has already awarded 11 CLPS deliveries and plans to continue to select two more flights per year.”
Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander is targeted to land near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, a more than 300-mile-wide basin located in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side. The NASA science on this flight will gather valuable scientific data studying Earth’s nearest neighbor and helping pave the way for the first Artemis astronauts to explore the lunar surface later this decade.
Learn more about NASA’s CLPS initiative at:
https://www.nasa.gov/clps
-end-
Amber Jacobson / Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
amber.c.jacobson@nasa.gov / karen.c.fox@nasa.gov
Natalia Riusech / Nilufar Ramji
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
nataila.s.riusech@nasa.gov / nilufar.ramji@nasa.gov
Antonia Jaramillo
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-501-8425
antonia.jaramillobotero@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jan 15, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) Artemis Earth's Moon Johnson Space Center Kennedy Space Center Lunar Science Science & Research Science Mission Directorate View the full article
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