Treasure trove (8/4/23)

Good morning. Payload cofounders Mo and Ari are heading to Utah next week for Small Sat. Be sure to say hello if you’re there, or reply to this email if you’d like to connect at the show.

In today's edition...
🔥 SBIR Ignite’s problem-solving push
🌦️ Using AI to model climate change
💫 Payload’s picks

Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.

SBIR’s Ignite Program Opens With A Different Ask This Year

This year, NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research Ignite program is looking for something new.

“We want to market to firms that don't typically do business with NASA,” engineer Quenton Bonds, who leads the SBIR Ignite program, told Payload.

The Ignite program, a two-year-old initiative aimed at helping NASA work with small businesses, is attempting to overhaul problems that have plagued the agency’s broader SBIR initiative for decades.

The lingo: NASA’s SBIR program provides funding and mentorship for small businesses. The SBIR Ignite spin off, which opened solicitations on Tuesday, specifically targets commercially-viable technology that would help the space program, but also have much broader applications beyond NASA.

A makeover: As it stands, the main SBIR is a tough game to win. The program, which looks for proposals on 80+ topics, is inundated with 1,000+ applications every year from companies who hire consultants specifically to write proposals geared toward nabbing a SBIR contract.

“We received feedback that we would keep funding the same companies. We received feedback that the solicitation paperwork was hard to understand. We received feedback that it was hard to talk to anybody from NASA before the solicitation launched,” Bonds said. “So at SBIR Ignite, we said, how can we try to figure out how to meet all of those needs while also staying within the guidelines of our program?”

Something new

The program decided to take a different approach by narrowing its search. First and foremost, the Ignite program is looking for companies that already have commercialization goals. This came after years of funding and tending to companies that crashed and burned after their stint with NASA was over.

“After they developed the technology, the technology didn't quite go anywhere because they haven't thought about their commercial market, they only thought about doing business with NASA,” Bonds said.

For space and Earth: The program is looking for use cases in five areas:

• Hybrid/electric powerplants for planes and drones

• Fixing bottlenecks to make it easier to produce space applications in LEO

• Climate change applications to mitigate wildfires and water management

• Removing space trash from orbit

• Technologies to mine Earth and the Moon

As a result, the program is looking for out-of-the-box companies to partner with, such as manufacturing firms, climate change companies, and data science and analytics startups that aren’t typically shelling out consulting fees to draft up a SBIR proposal. Instead, NASA is reaching out to organizations such as the National Society of Black Engineers and conducting ‘Ask Me Anything’ sessions so smaller companies can get on board.

“If we get more small businesses developing technology, that helps everybody,” Bonds said. “It brings in tax dollars. It brings in jobs. It gives us as a nation more technology to choose from, which makes us stronger in multiple areas.”

Sponsored

Join the CesiumAstro Team

CesiumAstro is a team of trailblazers seizing the opportunity to make a lasting impact in space and airborne communications. Help us innovate radical solutions that will define an autonomous future for Earth, Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Join our growing company at our offices across Texas, Colorado, Southern California, and the UK! We have exciting career opportunities available on our business development, program management and hardware teams (just to name a few).

NASA Releases its Geospatial AI Model

Wait your turn, room-temp superconductor. We’re still not finished with the AI craze.

NASA and IBM launched their open-source geospatial foundation model on the AI platform Hugging Face, the team announced yesterday. The model leverages NASA’s vast inventory of satellite data to provide insight and modeling on the impacts of climate change.

"We believe that foundation models have the potential to change the way observational data is analyzed and help us to better understand our planet," said Kevin Murphy, NASA’s chief science data officer.

Leveraging NASA’s Data Treasure Trove

NASA has one of the largest collections of EO data in the world. The agency estimates that by 2024, scientists will have a stunning 250,000 terabytes of data to sift through.

Enter machine learning: IBM took NASA’s Harmonized Landsat-Sentinel-2 data set and used adaptive AI capabilities to train the geospatial foundation model.

• The model has already demonstrated a 15% improvement in flood and burn mapping compared to existing models.

• Other use cases include deforestation tracking, greenhouse gas monitoring, and agriculture management.

Hugging Face 🤗: If you couldn’t tell by their logo, Hugging Face is a come-one, come-all AI community that stores and distributes open machine learning models. NASA and IBM chose the platform to maximize usage and promote the democratization of data.

The project supports NASA’s Open-Source Science Initiative, which promises to openly share software, data, and knowledge early in the scientific process.

In Other News

• Axiom is expecting to launch its fourth private mission to the ISS in August 2024.

• Northrop Grumman ($NOC) is upgrading its Cygnus spacecraft to be able to carry more cargo.

• Rocket Lab ($RKLB) has been the best performing space stock this year.

• SES is investigating a glitch in its four O3b mPower sats, which may delay further constellation deployment.

The View from Space

JWST liked it, so it put a ring (nebula) on it.