Announcements

Science & engineering doctoral candidates, recent PhDs, postdocs, & junior faculty who are U.S. Citizens or legal permanent residents (and a very limited number of Foreign Nationals from non-designated counties) are eligible.

Offered by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, PSSS is a career development experience with a workload of a rigorous 3-hour graduate-level course. Learn the development of a hypothesis-driven planetary science robotic mission in a concurrent engineering environment while getting an in-depth, first-hand look at mission design, life cycle, costs, schedule & the trade-offs inherent in each.

Spend 10 weeks in preparatory webinars acting as a science mission team. Then your final culminating week is mentored by JPL’s Advance Project Design Team to refine your mission concept design & present it to a mock expert review board. The culminating week is typically at JPL, however in 2022 it is likely to be virtual due to Covid-19 pandemic conditions.

See flyer for more information and links!

NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) announces the release of its annual omnibus solicitation for basic and applied research, Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Science (ROSES) 2022 as NNH22ZDA001N on or about February 14, 2022, on the NSPIRES web page at http://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ROSES2022.  *Please note that this opportunity is independent of the NASA EPSCoR program.

ROSES is an omnibus solicitation, with many individual program elements, each with its own due dates and topics. Table 2 and Table 3 of this NRA, which will be posted at http://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ROSES2022table2 and http://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ROSES2022table3, respectively, provide proposal due dates and hypertext links to descriptions of the solicited program elements in the Appendices of this NRA. Together, these program elements cover the wide range of basic and applied supporting research and technology in space and Earth sciences supported by SMD.

The ROSES NRA is written to allow program elements to issue grants, cooperative agreements, contracts, and inter- or intra-agency transfers, depending on the nature of the work proposed, the proposing organization, and/or program requirements. However, most extramural awards deriving from ROSES will be grants, and almost all program elements of ROSES specifically exclude contracts because it would not be appropriate for the nature of the work solicited. Organizations of every type, domestic and foreign, Government and private, for profit and not-for-profit, may submit proposals without restriction on teaming arrangements. Note that it is NASA policy that all research involving non-U.S. organizations will be conducted on the basis of no exchange of funds.

Awards range from under $100K per year for focused, limited efforts (e.g., data analysis) to more than $1M per year for extensive activities (e.g., development of hardware for science experiments and/or flight). Periods of performance are typically three years, but some programs may allow up to five years and others specify shorter periods.

The funds available and the anticipated number of awards are given in each program element and range from less than one to several million dollars, which allows for selection from a few to as many as several dozen proposals.

Electronic submission of proposals is required by the respective due dates for each program element and must be submitted by an authorized official of the proposing organization. Electronic proposals may be submitted via the NASA proposal data system NSPIRES or via Grants.gov.

Every organization that intends to submit a proposal in response to ROSES-2022 must be registered with NSPIRES; organizations that intend to submit proposals via Grants.gov must be registered with Grants.gov, in addition to being registered with NSPIRES. Such registration must identify the authorized organizational representative(s) (AOR) who will submit the electronic proposal. All proposal team members must be registered in NSPIRES regardless of the submission system, so we may perform automatic organizational conflict of interest checking of reviewers. Potential proposers and proposing organizations are urged to access the system(s) well in advance of the proposal due date(s) of interest to familiarize themselves with its structure and to enter the requested information.

Notices of intent to propose and step-1 proposals will be due starting in April 2022 and full (step-2) proposals will be due no earlier than May 16, 2022, through no later than May 12, 2023, by which time it is expected that the first full (Step-2) proposal due dates for next ROSES solicitation will begin.

Potential proposers are strongly encouraged to read Section I(d) of the ROSES Summary of Solicitation that lists Significant Changes from Recent ROSES.

To learn of the addition of new program elements and all amendments to this NRA, proposers may:

(1)  Subscribe to the SMD mailing lists (by logging in at http://nspires.nasaprs.com/ and checking the appropriate boxes under “Account Management” and “Email Subscriptions”) and

(2) Get automatic updates of due dates using the ROSES-2022 due date Google calendar. Instructions will be available shortly after release at https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/library-and-useful-links (link from the words due date calendar).

(3) and checking the ROSES-2022 Blog at https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/grant-solicitations/roses-2022/

Frequently asked questions about ROSES-2022 will be posted at http://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/faqs/ shortly after release.

Questions concerning the individual program elements in ROSES should be directed to the point(s) of contact in the Summary Table of Key Information at the end of the program element and at http://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/program-officers-list/.

Subject matter experts are encouraged to sign up to be a volunteer reviewer at https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/volunteer-review-panels

Questions concerning general ROSES-2022 policies and procedures may be directed to Max Bernstein, Lead for Research, Science Mission Directorate, at sara@nasa.gov.

Click the link below to register!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nasamsfc-academic-partnering-workshop-tickets-251306663997

Notices of Intent Due: March 2, 2022

Proposals Due: March 31, 2022

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Headquarters has released a solicitation, titled Early Career Faculty (ECF), as an appendix to the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) umbrella NASA Research Announcement (NRA) titled “Space Technology Research, Development, Demonstration, and Infusion 2022 (SpaceTech-REDDI-2022), on February 2, 2022. The solicitation is available at the following link: https://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/solicitations/summary.do?solId={BF27BB84-C93F-9D37-4FFE-8790D23AD076}&path=&method=init

The Space Technology Research Grants (STRG) Program within STMD seeks proposals from accredited U.S. universities on behalf of their outstanding new faculty members who intend to develop academic careers related to space technology.

Proposals must address one of the following topics:

Topic 1 – Development of Lightweight Solar Sail Attitude Control Technologies

Topic 2 – Hibernation and Recovery of Solar-Powered Systems for Lunar Missions

Topic 3 – Tailorable Composite Design Concepts towards Dimensionally Stable Structures

Only accredited U.S. universities are eligible to submit proposals on behalf of their outstanding new faculty members who intend to develop academic careers related to space technology. The PI must be an untenured Assistant Professor on the tenure track at the sponsoring U.S. university at the time of award. The PI must be a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, or have lawful status of permanent residency. The PI must be the primary researcher on the effort; Co-Investigators are not permitted. Collaborators (other than NASA civil servants/JPL) are permitted. See the solicitation (Section 3.0) for complete requirements regarding eligibility and for definitions and restrictions regarding collaborators.

A PI may submit only one proposal in response to this appendix.

NASA encourages submission of ECF proposals on behalf of early career faculty members at all U.S. universities and especially encourages proposals on behalf of women, members of underrepresented minority groups, and persons with disabilities. The financial and programmatic support for ECF comes from the Space Technology Research Grants Program within the Space Technology Mission Directorate. Awards are planned to start in early October 2022. NASA plans to make approximately 6 awards as a result of this ECF solicitation, subject to the receipt of meritorious proposals and the availability of funds. The actual number of awards will depend on the quality of the proposals received; NASA reserves the right to make no awards under this solicitation.

 

All proposals must be submitted electronically through NSPIRES or through Grants.gov (www.grants.gov) by an authorized organizational representative. Notices of Intent are strongly encouraged by March 2, 2022. Proposals are due on or before March 31, 2022. Detailed submission instructions are provided in the solicitation. Potential proposers and their proposing organizations are urged to familiarize themselves with the submission system(s), ensure they are registered in NSPIRES, and submit the required proposal materials well in advance of the deadline.

Technical and programmatic comments and questions may be addressed by email to the Space Technology Research Grants Program Executive, Claudia Meyer, at hq-ecf-call@mail.nasa.gov. Responses to inquiries will be answered by email and may also be included in the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) documents located on the NSPIRES page associated with the solicitation; anonymity of persons/institutions who submit questions will be preserved.

NASA’s Call for Abstracts for the 73rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC) is due February 21, 2022

 

Audience: Full-time U.S. Graduate Students Attending U.S. Universities

 

NASA announces its intent to participate in the 73rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC) and requests that full-time U.S. graduate students attending U.S. universities respond to this “Call for Abstracts.”

The IAC – organized by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), and the International Institute of Space Law (IISL) – is the largest space-related conference worldwide and selects an average of 1000 scientific papers every year. The upcoming IAC is scheduled September 18-22, 2022 in Paris, France. NASA’s participation in this event is an on-going effort to continue to bridge NASA with the astronautical and space international community.

This “Call for Abstracts” is a precursor to a subsequent submission of a final paper, which may be presented at the 73rd IAC. Student authors are invited to submit an abstract regarding an original, unpublished paper that has not been submitted in any other forum. A NASA technical review panel will select abstracts from those that have been accepted by the IAF. This opportunity is for graduate students majoring in fields related to the IAF research topics. Students may submit technical (oral) presentations and/or interactive posters. Students may submit abstracts that are co-authored with their Principal Investigators. However, the student must be the “lead author,” and only the student will present at the IAC. Students must be available to travel to the conference to represent NASA and their universities, if the Congress is held face-to face. Students must be U.S. citizens, attending a U.S. university, who plan to enter a career in space science or aeronautics. Pending the availability of funding, graduate students selected by NASA to participate in the IAC will be considered for subsidy funding from NASA. Only abstracts selected by the IAF will be considered for NASA sponsorship.   

Many students and professors are currently involved in NASA related research that could be considered for this submission. Students submitting abstracts are strongly encouraged to seek advice from professors, who are conducting NASA research and/or from NASA scientists and engineers. Abstracts must be related to NASA’s ongoing vision for space exploration and fit into one of the following IAC categories:

• Science and Exploration – Systems sustaining missions, including life, microgravity, space exploration, space debris and Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI)
• Applications and Operations – On-going and future operational applications, including earth observation, communication, navigation, human space endeavors and small satellites
• Technology – Common technologies to space systems including astrodynamics, structures, power and propulsion
• Infrastructure – Systems sustaining space missions including space system transportation, future systems and safety
• Space and Society – Interaction of space with society including education, policy and economics, history and law

The criteria for the selection will be defined according to the following specifications:

• Abstracts should specify: purpose, methodology, results, conclusions and areas for discussion.
• Abstracts should indicate that substantive technical and/or programmatic content is included.
• Abstracts should clearly indicate that the material is new and original; they should explain why and how.
• Prospective author(s) should certify that the paper was not presented at a previous meeting.
• Abstracts must be written in English and the length should not exceed 400 words. Tables or drawings are not allowed in the abstract.

Submit your abstract to NASA at https://iac.nasaprs.com  no later than 11:59 PM EST on February 21, 2022.  Please submit proof of U.S. citizenship and current enrollment in U.S. University or college no later than February 28, 2022 to abstract@nasaprs.com. Submit your abstract to the IAF at their website, https://iafastro.directory/iac/account/login/ by February 28, 2022.

IAC Paper Selection:
Submitted abstracts will be evaluated by the Session Chairs on the basis of technical quality and relevance to the session topics. Selected abstracts may be chosen for eventual oral or interactive poster presentation. Any such choice is not an indication of quality of the submitted abstract. Their evaluation will be submitted to the Symposium Coordinators, who will make acceptance recommendations to the International Programme Committee, which will make the final decision. Please note that any relevance to the Congress main theme will be considered as an advantage.

The following information must be included in the submission: paper title, name of contact author, name of co-author(s), organization(s), full postal address, phone, email of the author and co-author(s). Abstract should specify purpose, methodology, results and conclusions and should indicate that substantive technical and/or programmatic content, as well as clearly indicate that the material is new and original and explain why and how.

Please check the IAF website regularly to get the latest updates on the Technical Programme, as well as updates related to COVID-19 and any related restrictions.

Through Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) solicits proposals from accredited U.S. universities and other eligible organizations for graduate student-designed and performed research projects that contribute to SMD’s science, technology, and exploration goals identified and funded by the Astrophysics, Biological and Physical Science, Earth Science, Heliophysics, Planetary Science, and Science Engagement and Partnerships Divisions.

 

Updates/Reminders/Invitations for FINESST-2021 are as follows:

 

1. On or after February 1, a summary document from the optional, pre-proposal teleconference held December 9, 2021, may be found under “Other Documents” at https://go.nasa.gov/FINESST21. NOTE: This summary includes an appendix with questions and answers (Q&A) received during and after the call through January 28, 2022.
2. Reminder: Proposals to FINESST are due on February 11, 2021.
3. Want to review for FINESST? Based on your expertise, please volunteer via the hyperlinks:

Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST)—Earth Science

Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST)—Space Science

4. Email questions/comments to HQ-FINESST@mail.nasa.gov. The FINESST Team expects to respond on an individual basis by email without posting anonymized versions as additional public Q&As.