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Previous NASA Awards for In Space Production Applications

Source: NASA

As of spring 2023, NASA has invested greater than $60M in more than twenty In Space Production Applications (InSPA) awards to U.S. entities seeking to demonstrate the production of advanced materials and products on the International Space Station.  These InSPA awards help the selected companies raise the technological readiness level of their products and move them to market, propelling U.S. industry toward the development of a sustainable, scalable, and profitable non-NASA demand for services and products manufactured in the microgravity environment of low-Earth orbit for use on Earth.

Flawless Photonics – Fabrication of Flawless Glass
Contact: Dr. Michael VestelFlawless Photonics of Los Altos Hills, California, in partnership with the University of Adelaide, Axiom Space, and Visioneering Space has been selected for their proposal to develop specialized glass manufacturing hardware to process Heavy-Metal Fluoride Glasses (HMFG) in microgravity. HMFG glasses are used in the terrestrial manufacturing of exotic optical fibers and other optics applications. Without convective forces present in 1g, HMFG made in microgravity are expected to achieve the ideal amorphous microstructure during synthesis, eliminating light scattering defects that limit lasing power and transmission over long fiber lengths.
Apsidal – Intelligent Glass Optics
Contact: Dr. Amrit DeApsidal LLC. of Los Angeles, California, is developing the IGO module to process various types of complex glasses in space from which optical fibers, fiber lasers, magnetic fibers, super-continuum sources, capillary optics and adiabatic tapers can be drawn. One of the key innovations is a custom Laser Doppler Sensor for real-time in-situ analysis and feedback control of the manufacturing process. Additionally, this technology is Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted to be adaptive and to optimize production in a low Earth orbit (LEO) environment. The microgravity environment of space is needed as gravity-induced material convection and sedimentation in complex glasses on Earth subsequently leads to unwanted crystallization, thus creating defects which reduce performance. Market areas for products from this module include specialty fibers for low-loss and high bandwidth communications, high-power fiber-amplifiers, IR counter measures, supercontinuum sources, medical applications, remote sensing, X-ray optics, and laser processing.
Fiber Optic Manufacturing in Space – Space Fibers
Contact: Dr. Dmitry StarodubovFOMS Inc of San Diego, California, has developed a facility-class instrument for fiber fabrication in the microgravity environment to improve the quality of specialty optical fibers with the promise of up to 100x reduction in insertion loss due to the suppression of crystallization and phase separation. Two previous iterations of the facility have flown to the space station, with the third generation scheduled to launch on the 25th SpaceX cargo resupply services mission in May 2022.
Mercury Systems Torrance – Fiber Optic Production
Contact: Eric RuckerMercury Systems of Torrance, California, has developed a facility-class instrument for fiber fabrication in the microgravity environment to improve the quality of specialty optical fibers with the promise of up to two orders of magnitude reduction in insertion loss compared to traditional SiO2 fibers due to the suppression of crystallization and sedimentation. The first generation of the facility has flown to the space station producing over 90m of ZBLAN optical fiber from a fluorinated exotic glass preform composed of Zirconium, Barium, Lanthanum, Aluminum, and Sodium (ZrF4-BaF2-LaF3-AlF3-NaF). The second-generation FOP-2 launches on SpaceX CRS-25 in May 2022 using a nitrogen purge previously demonstrated in reduced gravity on a parabolic flight.
Redwire/Made In Space – Turbine Ceramic Manufacturing Module
Contact: Justin KuglerMade In Space of Jacksonville, Florida, a Redwire company, is developing the TCMM to provide proof-of-principal for single-piece ceramic turbine blisk (blade + disk) manufacturing in microgravity for terrestrial use. Launched in October 2020 on Northrop Grumman’s CRS-14 mission, TCMM successfully demonstrated ceramic additive manufacturing in space for the first time in history. TCMM was also the first demonstration of stereolithography ceramic fabrication in space. The project focuses on advanced materials engineering ultimately leading to reductions in part mass, residual stress, and fatigue. Strength improvements of even 1-2 percent, as a result of being manufactured in microgravity, can yield years to decades of superior service life. Market applications include high performance turbines, nuclear plants, or internal combustion engines.
Redwire/Made In Space – Turbine Superalloy Casting Module
Made In Space of Jacksonville, Florida, a Redwire company, is developing the TSCM to provide proof of principle for polycrystal superalloy part manufacturing in microgravity for terrestrial use. Superalloys thermally processed in microgravity could have improved microstructure and mechanical properties over superalloys processed on Earth. This work expands utilization of the ISS National Lab into new commercial product areas not previously investigated.
Delivered to space station on SpaceX CRS-24 in December 2021, TSCM investigates potential improvements in superalloy microstructure by heat treating in microgravity. Market applications include turbine engines in industries such as aerospace and power generation.
Redwire/Techshot – Pharmaceutical In-space Laboratory 
Contact: Rachel OrmsbyRedwire Corporation Inc. of Greenville, Indiana, has been selected for its proposal to produce small, uniform crystals as stable seed batches for pharmaceutical and institutional research customers seeking improvements/refinements in product purification, formulation and/or delivery using crystalline formulations. Their Pharmaceutical In-space Laboratory Bio-crystal Optimization Xperiment (PIL-BOX) Dynamic Microscopy Cassette (DMC) will be capable of testing multiple crystallization conditions and providing samples to be returned to Earth for analysis. When grown in microgravity, crystals are produced more uniformly and have very low size coefficients of variation thereby allowing a more stable crystal growth, high concentration, and low viscosity parenteral formulation. The proposed innovation will provide manufacturing services to companies, institutions, and agencies pursuing uniform crystallization research.
United Semiconductors – Semimetal-Semiconductor Composite Bulk Crystals
Contact: Dr. DuttaUnited Semiconductors of Los Alamitos, California, has been selected for their proposal to produce semimetal-semiconductor composite bulk crystals commonly used in electromagnetic sensors for solving challenges in the energy, high performance computing and national security sectors. Together with teammates Axiom Space of Houston and Redwire of Greenville, Indiana, United Semiconductors intends to validate the scaling and efficacy of producing larger semimetal-semiconductor composite crystals under microgravity conditions with perfectly aligned and continuous semimetal wires embedded across the semiconductor matrix. If successful at eliminating defects found in those manufactured with terrestrial materials, United Semiconductors will have developed a processing technology for creating device-ready wafers from space-grown crystals.

Redwire/Made In Space – Industrial Crystallization Facility
Contact: Justin KuglerMade In Space of Jacksonville, Florida, a Redwire company, is developing the ICF to provide proof-of-principle for diffusion-based crystallization methods to produce high-quality optical crystals in microgravity relevant for terrestrial use. ICF launched to the International Space Station on Northrop Grumman’s CRS-15 on February 20, 2021. It was the first facility to grow inorganic potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP) crystals aboard space station, offering important insight into microgravity-enabled growth processes for industrial crystals, which could yield opportunities for commercial production on-orbit. Market applications include ultra-fast optical switches, optical waveguides, optical circuit lithography, high-efficiency ultraviolet light production, and terahertz wave sensors. 

LambdaVision/Space Tango –Retinal Implant
Contact: Alain BerinstainSpace Tango of Lexington, Kentucky, and its partner, LambdaVision of Farmington, Connecticut, are developing a system to manufacture protein-based retinal implants, or artificial retinas, in microgravity. The market for this work is the millions of patients suffering from retinal degenerative diseases, including retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of blindness for adults over 55 years old. This effort builds on a validation flight completed in late 2018 that demonstrated the proof of concept for generating multilayered protein-based thin films in space using a miniaturized layer-by-layer manufacturing device. This project will further mature the manufacturing system, producing protein-based artificial retinas in space that would be returned to Earth for preclinical evaluation of the technology. This work will establish the necessary regulatory requirements for producing biomedical products in space station, including current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP). The microgravity environment of space hinders convection and sedimentation in the manufacturing process, enabling more uniform layers, improved stability and higher quality thin films than can be produced on Earth. The team successfully produced 200 layers of protein on their most recent flight on SpaceX Crew-4.

Redwire/Made In Space – Manufacturing of Semiconductors and Thin-film Integrated Coatings (MSTIC)
Contact: Justin KuglerMade In Space of Jacksonville, Florida, a Redwire company, is developing the MSTIC facility as an autonomous, high throughput manufacturing capability for production of high quality, lower cost semiconductor chips at a rapid rate. Terrestrial semiconductor chip production suffers from the impacts of convection and sedimentation in the manufacturing process. Fabricating in microgravity is expected to reduce the number of gravity-induced defects, resulting in more usable chips per wafer. Market applications include semiconductor supply chains for telecommunications and energy industries.
Auxilium Biotechnologies/Space Tango – Drug Delivery Medical Devices
Contact: Dr. Jacob KofflerAuxilium Biotechnologies with Space Tango has been selected for its proposal to develop a second-generation drug-delivery medical device to more effectively treat people who have sustained traumatic peripheral nerve injury. Auxilium’s Gen 1.0 NeuroSpan Bridge is a biomimetic nerve regeneration device that guides and accelerates nerve regeneration, eliminating the need for a patient to sacrifice a nerve in the leg to repair a nerve in the arm or face. Auxilium will use its expertise in fast, high-resolution 3D-printing to adapt its proprietary platform to a Gen 2.0 3D-print device in microgravity by adding novel drug delivery nanoparticles with the potential to substantially accelerate regeneration and improve functional outcomes for people on Earth.
Lawrence Livermore National Lab/Space Tango – VAM Organ Production
Contact: Dr. Maxim ShusteffLawrence Livermore National Laboratory, located in Livermore, California, in partnership with Space Tango, has been selected for their proposal to adapt their terrestrial volumetric 3D bioprinting device for use in microgravity to demonstrate production of artificial cartilage tissue in space. The Volumetric Additive Manufacturing (VAM) technology is a revolutionary, ultra-rapid 3D printing method that solidifies a complete 3D structure from a photosensitive liquid resin in minutes. Because of the absence of settling and gravity-driven buoyancy and convective flows in the prepolymer, the cartilage tissues manufactured and matured in microgravity are expected to have superior structural, organizational, and mechanical properties suitable for use in long-term tissue repair and replacement.
University of Connecticut, STORRS/Axiom – Biomimetic Fabrication of Multifunctional DNA-inspired Nanomaterials
Contact: Dr. Yupeng ChenThe University of Connecticut, out of Storrs, Connecticut, in partnership with Eascra Biotech of Boston, Massachusetts and Axiom Space of Houston has been selected for their proposed biomimetic fabrication of multifunctional nanomaterials, a cutting-edge breakthrough in biomedicine that can benefit from microgravity in space to accomplish controlled self-assembly of DNA-inspired Janus base nanomaterials (JBNs). These JBNs will be used as effective, safe and stable delivery vehicles for RNA therapeutics and vaccines, as well as first-in-kind injectable scaffolds for regenerative medicine. By leveraging the benefits of microgravity, the UConn/Eascra team expects to mature in-space production of different types of JBNs with more orderly structures and higher homogeneity over what is possible using terrestrial materials, improving efficacy for mRNA therapeutics and structural integrity for cartilage tissue repair.

BioServe Space Technologies with University of Colorado – Expansion of Hematopoietic Stem Cells
Contact: Dr. Louis StodieckBioServe Space Technologies and The University of Colorado of Boulder, Colorado, in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic, ClinImmune Cell and Gene Therapy (University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus), RheumaGen, and with support from Sierra Space has been selected for their proposal to develop a specialized bioreactor that will produce large populations of Hematopoietic Stem Cells (HSCs) in microgravity to treat serious medical conditions including blood cancers (leukemias, lymphomas, multiple myeloma), blood disorders, severe immune diseases, and certain autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis. Expansion of HSCs in microgravity is expected to result in greater stem cell expansion with less cell differentiation than is seen in 1g. If successful, the technology may enable safe and effective cell therapy transplantation, especially in children and younger adults, where long-term bone marrow cell repopulation is critical to the patient’s lifetime health.

Cedars Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute/Axiom – Stem Cell Therapy
Contact: Dr. Clive SvendsenCedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute, located in Los Angeles in partnership with Axiom Space of Houston has been selected for proposing to use cutting-edge methods related to the production and differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) on the International Space Station. Cedars-Sinai will explore in-space production of stem cells into heart, brain, and blood tissues in support of regenerative medicine uses on Earth. While stem cells and stem cell-derived tissues hold great promise for use in research and as clinical-grade therapeutic agents, safe and efficient expansion of stem cells and their derivatives continues to be a major challenge on Earth. Generating, expanding, and differentiating cells at scale in the microgravity environment of space with sufficient yields of a constant therapeutic cell product that meets FDA biologics requirements may be the answer to overcome those challenges.
Redwire/Techshot – BioFabrication Facility
Contact: Rich BolingTechshot of Greenville, Indiana, a Redwire company, is developing the BFF as a space-based 3D biomanufacturing platform capable of printing with live human cells (autologous or allogenic). The facility contains an XYZ gantry with multiple print heads and a bioreactor cassette in the X-Y plane. Without the addition of scaffolding or chemical bio-ink thickening agents, attempts to 3D print with cells on Earth only results in creating a puddle. With scaffolding and thickening agents, organ-like shapes can be printed on Earth, but they cannot function as such. BFF prints in space with low viscosity bio-inks that only contain cells and nutrients, which enable cells to remain healthy and mobile – a necessity for creating solid thick tissue. Following a weeks-long in-space conditioning phase inside a special Redwire bioreactor, the tissue constructs are strong enough to resist gravity and remain viable following their return to Earth. In 2020, Redwire manufactured test prints of a partial human meniscus aboard the International Space Station for the company’s DoD customer, the 4-Dimensional Bioprinting, Biofabrication, and Biomanufacturing, or 4D Bio3 program, based at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. The program is a collaboration between the university and The Geneva Foundation, a non-profit organization that advances military medical research. A second round of printing in space for 4D Bio3 is scheduled for late 2022 after delivery of a 2nd generation printer on SpaceX CRS-26.  Redwire is planning additional bioprinting operations with the BFF, such as the Fabrication in Austere Military Environments (FAME) bioprinting program. Market applications include human tissue and organ repair or replacement.
Redwire/Techshot – Cell Reprogramming Facility
Contact: Rich BolingTechshot of Greenville, Indiana, a Redwire company, is developing the CRF to manufacture induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) in orbit using adult cells, then enabling the cells to develop into many other types of cells, that can be used inside the BFF bioprinter and on Earth for regenerative medicine, especially cell therapies. The first element of the Cell Factory system – the CRF – is in development now. Market applications include cell therapies for restorative health and autologous cell sourcing for bioprinting and vascular applications.
Cedars Sinai/Space Tango – Stem Cell Production
Contact: Alain BerinstainSpace Tango of Lexington, Kentucky, and its partner Cedars-Sinai of Los Angeles, California, are developing pilot-scale systems for the production in space of large batches of stem cells to be used in personalized medical treatment for a variety of diseases. The development of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) for commercial personalized medicine applications is done in space because the work to date on the space station demonstrates stem cells retain their “stemness” for longer durations in microgravity, allowing a delay of differentiation that has the potential to enable larger batches of cells to be produced. The pilot-scale systems, built for the space station to serve as a basis for future commercial manufacturing systems, will incorporate regulatory strategies to support FDA clinical trial production of personalized medicine stem cell therapies on the space station. Including current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) conditions, required for the production of stem cell therapies for human use in patients.
Sanford/Space Tango – Integrated Space Stem Cell Orbiting Lab
Contact: Alain BerinstainSpace Tango of Lexington, Kentucky, and its partners at UC San Diego/Sanford Consortium in La Jolla, California, are working to establish a new on-orbit biomedical sector for stem cell advancement, with a fully operational self-sustaining orbital laboratory anticipated by 2025. The team is working to refine current hardware capabilities and process flows, extending the capabilities of ground-based laboratories with regular access to the space station via secured flight opportunities. Stem cells differentiate into tissue specific progenitors that can be used in microgravity to better understand aging and immune dysfunction, providing an opportunity to accelerate advances in regenerative medicine and the development of potential new therapeutic approaches. The target market for this orbital laboratory is a new approach to stem cell translational medicine.
Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine/Axiom – Engineered Liver Tissue
Contact: Dr. Anthony Atala
Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has partnered with Axiom Space and BioServe Space Technologies to pursue a groundbreaking initiative. Their proposal takes advantage of the microgravity environment to develop and validate a platform that supports a ‘building block’ strategy for in-space manufacturing of vascularized and perfused liver tissue as a bridge to transplantation. This is a continuation of the NASA Centennial Vascular Tissue Challenge, where WFIRM teams won first and second place for creating metabolically active thick liver tissue that retained function for thirty days. The overarching goal is to enhance the formation of a microcapillary system within a perfusable 3D bioprinted vascularized engineered liver tissue constructs for biomanufacturing clinical-scale liver tissue constructs that allow integration into the recipient’s peripheral circulation for the treatment of liver disease. Once validated, this platform technology can produce multiple tissue construct types, including kidney and pancreas, among others. In Phase 1a, the team plans to evaluate various 3D bioprinted designs for vascularized tissue constructs to be evaluated in microgravity to identify the optimal parameters to produce liver tissue that is suitable in size to serve as a bridge to regeneration or transplantation. Phases 2 and 3 will involve biomanufacturing liver tissue constructs of the optimal design for human clinical trials and process scale-up for future commercialization.

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InSPA Inter-Agency Collaboration Goals

Source: NASA

NASA knows it takes a village to make commercial manufacturing in space a reality. NASA is collaborating with experts from industry, academia and other U.S. Government agencies on the technologies in play with the InSPA portfolio.  By joining forces with these experts, NASA can better support its commercial partners, accelerating the transition from proof-of-concept demonstrations on the International Space Station to commercial operations in future commercial low Earth orbit (LEO) destinations. NASA’s InSPA awards help the selected companies raise the technological readiness level of their products and move them to market, propelling U.S. industry toward the development of a sustainable, scalable, and profitable non-NASA demand for services and products manufactured in the microgravity environment of LEO for use on Earth.
NASA is recruiting agency, government and industry experts to inform NASA’s InSPA priorities, accelerate learning and increase commercialization success.

We will provide input on NASA Technology Roadmaps and/or evaluate proposals to inform awards for applications that serve national needs and U.S. competitiveness. We will also participate in working group discussions.

Concepts that support the goals of the “CHIPS and Science Act” through semiconductor manufacturing in microgravity are of special interest to NASA. Those selected for further assessment will be invited to submit full proposals. NASA is seeking funding from the CHIPS and Science Act through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to ensure US leadership in semiconductor manufacturing in microgravity. To support this initiative, NASA’s InSPA program may grant awards that come with funding for facilities, workforce development, academic support, and program development.

Space Hardware Experts for Research, Production, and Applications (SHERPA) shares knowledge as subject matter experts on science, technology, manufacturing, markets, and investors. Provide support directly to principal investigators or through NASA Technical Monitors to accelerate learning.
Specific SHERPA activities:
Identify new InSPA candidates important to other government agencies where gravity is impeding development.
Assist in prioritization and decisions on down-selects.
Peer review at major milestones (design reviews, science requirements, ground and in-flight testing).
Develop performance goals and metrics that must be met to exceed current state-of-the-art.
Leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) and expand space databases to improve models and increase value from each flight, across the years and programs.
Perform independent analysis and validation of flight results.
Conduct outreach to industry and other government agencies for Phase 2 and 3 sponsorships.

Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Directed Energy Directorate
Don Ufford, Advanced Manufacturing Policy Fellow, Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office, Department of Commerce – National Institute of Standards and Technology
Danilo A. Tagle, Ph.D., Director, Office for Special Initiatives, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the National Institutes of Health
Jas S. Sanghera, Ph.D., Branch Head of Optical Materials and Devices, Naval Research Laboratory
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

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NASA Implementation Strategy for In Space Production Applications

Source: NASA

NASA’s In Space Production Applications (InSPA) implementation strategy consists of a multi-phase award process to demonstrate proof-of-concept, advance to high production quality, and ultimately to achieve scalability on a commercial low Earth orbit (LEO) destination or platform. InSPA seeks to identify awardees who propose promising manufacturing efforts in microgravity that will invigorate markets on Earth. These InSPA awards help the selected companies raise the technological readiness level of their products and move them to market, propelling U.S. industry toward the development of a sustainable, scalable, and profitable non-NASA demand for services and products manufactured in the microgravity environment of LEO for use on Earth.

On an annual and ongoing basis, NASA releases two calls for white papers by U.S. entities through Special Focus Area #1 (In Space Production Applications) of the NASA Research Announcement (NRA) NNJ13ZBG001N, “Research Opportunities for International Space Station Utilization.” Those entities with the highest rated white papers are then invited to submit a full proposal. After the proposal evaluation period, NASA makes selections, and awardees sign a Firm Fixed Price contract with NASA to develop and demonstrate their concept on the ISS National Laboratory. NRA white paper and proposal submissions are required at each phase of the lifecycle.

Awardees are provided access to the ISS National Laboratory and all necessary on-orbit resources: upmass, downmass, U.S. Operating Segment (USOS) crew time, data transmission, and power, including flight manifesting and increment operations planning, at no cost. Payloads are subject to review and approval by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the operator of the ISS National Laboratory.

NASA has identified three InSPA phases (reference Figure 1) to characterize technology maturation from early concept studies through financially self-sustaining LEO production technologies.

InSPA Phase 1
Enable early proof-of-concept studies and/or basic flight hardware development and test through multiple demonstrations on parabolic, sub-orbital, and orbital missions on the ISS to achieve TRL of 6 and MRL of 3. Proposals should identify the improvements sought and describe the number and type of demonstration tests appropriate to achieve exit criteria for the Phase. The goals of Phase 1 (i.e., exit criteria) are:
To demonstrate hardware performance and validate the scientific basis for the technology benefit in a LEO space environment. 
To establish a minimum level of production control to repeatedly produce the intended product to a quality or performance level comparable to Earth-based controls or state of the art. 
To refine the business case with preliminary revenue forecasts based on actual microgravity demonstrations and gain support from potential partners or investors to capture a moderate level of non-NASA investment for Phase 2.
InSPA Phase 2
Enable design maturation and advanced flight hardware development with additional demonstrations on ISS to achieve a TRL of 8 and MRL of 7. NASA has an expectation of some degree of cost-sharing in this phase (reference Cost Sharing guideline in section 1.2.3 of the NRA). The goals of Phase 2 (i.e., exit criteria) are:
To demonstrate full control of hardware, environments, and processes to meet specific performance standards for the application.  These standards are often set by the customer and should be to a level of performance or quality within the application setting that is significantly better than possible on Earth. 
To refine the business case to a level that successfully captures significant investor commitment for Phase 3.
InSPA Phase 3
Enable scaled flight hardware production on ISS or an alternative commercial LEO destination/platform to demonstrate commercial operations and end-to-end logistics model producing sufficient quantities to achieve a TRL of 9 and MRL of 9 and to close the business case. NASA expects a significant degree of cost-sharing by industry for a Phase 3 award (reference Cost Sharing guideline in Section 1.2.3 of the NRA). The goals of Phase 3 are:
Demonstrate scaling to commercial quantities and quality to support market demand, including supply chain and regulatory approvals. 
To establish formal agreements with U.S. LEO transportation and destination partners for transition to commercial operations. 
Begin transition to commercial platform(s) and achieve sustainable revenues. 

Reference
NASA Research Announcement (NRA) NNJ13ZBG001N, “Research Opportunities for International Space Station Utilization”

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In Space Production: Applications Within Reach

Source: NASA

After four decades of microgravity research, NASA and the ISS National Lab have identified numerous applications that are within reach for NASA’s In Space Production Applications (InSPA) portfolio. Uniform crystals, semiconductors, specialized glass and optical fibers are just a few of the many advanced materials that can benefit from production in microgravity. Artificial retinas, drug delivery medical devices, as well as the production of pluripotent stem cells and bio inks are examples of how microgravity can stimulate the medical and bioscience industries. The most promising may be the production of small molecule crystalline proteins for pharmaceutical therapies. NASA’s InSPA objective is to enable sustainable, scalable, and profitable non-NASA demand for services and products manufactured in the microgravity environment of low-Earth orbit for use on Earth.

InSPA supports the goals of the White House’s “Cancer Moonshot” by seeking new applications that will accelerate the rate of progress against cancer. These projects are of special interest and may include manufacturing of compounds or therapeutics to address oncology applications on Earth.
InSPA also supports the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which provides the Department of Commerce with $50 billion for a suite of programs strengthen and revitalize the U.S. position in semiconductor research, development, and manufacturing. InSPA projects centered around semiconductor manufacturing are of special interest and can ensure United States leadership in semiconductor production. (Source: https://www.nist.gov/chips)
InSPA awards fall into two categories, Advanced Materials and Tissue Engineering and Biomanufacturing.
Advanced Materials
Advanced Materials use microgravity phenomena singly and in combination to produce a growing range of new products. For example:
Removing sedimentation and buoyancy enables unique alloys and compositions.
Surface tension processes can eliminate voids and ensure continuous contact between dissimilar materials.
Lack of convection provides quiescent environments that can remove or minimize defects.
Crystal Production in microgravity has numerous applications in drug development, testing, and delivery, as well as semiconductors and inorganic frameworks. For example, crystals have the following properties in microgravity:
They grow more slowly, enabling optical fiber manufacturing that suppresses crystallization defects.
They grow in a more uniform manner that can better inform and enable better quality protein-based therapeutics.
They grow larger and more perfect enabling exceptional quality industrial crystals and macromolecular structures.

Thin Layer Deposition in microgravity has applications in layering for medical devices, semiconductors, and ceramic coatings. For example:
Absence of sedimentation and buoyancy allow surface tension effects to dominate, resulting in more uniform and atomically and molecularly precise layering for artificial retinas and other devices.
Tissue Engineering and Biomanufacturing
In microgravity, tissues can be formed in three dimensions without supporting architecture, and living matter adapts to microgravity through a variety of mechanisms that can be used to model cellular dysfunction, which occurs on Earth. For example:
Gravity constrains tissue engineering on Earth by flattening and deforming 3D tissue constructs.
Microgravity allows larger tissues to be constructed and used to inform medicine.
Growing evidence indicates that the interaction of microgravity and living systems elicits responses similar to rapid aging on Earth that can be used to accelerate disease modeling and therapeutic development.
Combined 3D tissue engineering with accelerated aging effects, informed by latest biotech and artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) offers new and rapidly growing knowledge, opportunities, and products for disease modeling, testing, and drug development.

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What is In Space Production Applications?

Source: NASA

NASA supports In Space Production Applications (InSPA) awards to help the selected companies raise the technological readiness level of their products and move them to market, propelling U.S. industry toward the development of a sustainable, scalable, and profitable non-NASA demand for services and products in low-Earth orbit. These commercialization awards provide opportunities for NASA to reduce its future costs in LEO enabling deep-space missions farther from Earth, including the Moon and Mars. NASA is leading commercial LEO development efforts to stimulate non-NASA demand for commercially owned and operated orbital destinations from which NASA can purchase services as one of many customers. As new commercial orbital destinations become available, NASA intends to foster an orderly transition from current space station operations and research to the new commercial enterprise as laid out in NASA’s International Space Station Transition Report.

Ensuring U.S. leadership of in-space manufacturing in low-Earth orbit by enabling the use of the ISS National Laboratory to demonstrate the production of advanced materials and products for terrestrial markets.

A robust and sustainable space economy where a diverse portfolio of U.S. companies operates a broad array of commercially owned productions facilities alongside government and private astronauts living and training on the LEO Commercial Destinations that follow the space station.

Serve national interests by developing in-space production applications for Earth that strengthen U.S. technological leadership, improve national security, and create high-quality jobs, and/or  
Provide benefits to humanity by developing products in LEO that significantly improve the quality of life for people on Earth, and 
Enable the development of a robust economy in LEO by stimulating scalable and sustainable non-NASA utilization of future commercial LEO destinations or orbital platforms.
For more information about InSPA, please read: In Space for Earth! – In Space Production Applications Overview White Paper and InSPA Awards Provide Funding and Expertise to Help Promising U.S. Innovators.
For contact information and frequently asked questions, please see: NASA Points of Contact and FAQs
Download the InSPA logo here.

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Goddard Engineers Improve NASA Lidar Tech for Exploration, Navigation

Source: NASA

Lidar technology improvements will help NASA scientists and explorers with remote sensing and surveying, mapping, 3D-image scanning, hazard detection and avoidance, and navigation.

Like a sonar using light instead of sound, lidar technology increasingly helps NASA scientists and explorers with remote sensing and surveying, mapping, 3D-image scanning, hazard detection and avoidance, and navigation.
Cutting edge innovations by NASA researchers seek to refine lidars into smaller, lighter, more versatile tools for exploration.
“There are a lot of flavors of lidar right now,” said Cheryl Gramling, assistant chief for technology at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It’s such an important technology because of the precision and versatility that it offers.”
Light detection and ranging, or lidar, is a remote sensing technology related to sonar and radar. Lidar uses pulses of light to measure distances and properties of objects accurately, by measuring the time it takes the light to reflect back to the lidar sensor.
Goddard innovators are looking to expand the usefulness of lidar applications in communication and navigation, planetary exploration, and space operations. Here are a few of the current investigations.
Foldable, Flat Lidar Optics

Research engineer Mark Stephen is developing a deployable, segmented telescope to capture the returning light signal using state-of-the-art flat-panel optics organized in foldable, origami-inspired panels. Working with researchers at Brigham Young University, their team seeks to provide future missions with the benefits of lidar technology without the current technologies’ high cost and limited efficiency.
Lidar typically is a high-cost technology that may not make the cut for tomorrow’s smaller, lighter, and more efficient missions. Size, weight, and power demands limit the technology’s ability to be implemented in more missions.
“Most people want really high performance,” Stephen said, “But they want it in a small, light, and power-efficient package. We’re trying to find the best balance, and cost matters. Often the cost comes more from the size, weight, and power than it does from the actual development if we’re launching something into space. That is where it gets expensive.”
Stephen is wrapping up a three-year effort to improve lidars through a Radical Innovation Initiative grant within Goddard’s Internal Research and Development (IRAD) program. Their project has been picked up by NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office to fund further improvements.
Typically, lidar receivers depend on bulky lenses to capture light, each lens needs a specific curvature and size to bend the light, in addition to the structures which hold the lenses, and other mechanics, Stephen said. Larger lenses are more effective, and that is where lidar technology tends to get heavy.
Flat optics use new types of nano-structured materials to manipulate individual photons, he said. These meta-materials allow thin and lightweight optics to perform the same functions as much larger and more expensive three-dimensional counterparts.

“We are working toward being able to have a family of instruments where we have some flexibility and agility to meet the needs of a given mission,” Stephen said. “We want to develop a tool where you can make a better trade in terms of size, weight and power versus performance.”
One Laser, Many Wavelengths
Goddard engineer Guangning Yang is looking to improve lidar by producing multiple wavelengths of light from a single beam. Most modern lidars use multiple beams of a single wavelength to increase their accuracy.
Yang is the primary investigator for CASALS, or Concurrent Artificially intelligent Spectrometry and Adaptive Lidar System, a lidar technology that can sweep a large area more efficiently.
CASALS starts with one laser pulse, but instead of splitting that pulse into the many directions it needs to travel, their technology changes the wavelength of the laser at a very high speed. The different wavelengths of light then exit the laser transmitter at different angles based on their wavelength.
This pulse sequence produces a broom-like array sweeping across the object, landscape, or celestial body being studied.
“We have improved the efficiency,” Yang said, “and that will allow us to reduce the instrument’s size dramatically.”
Along with improvements in efficiency, CASALS is smaller than a typical lidar instrument. Yang said CASALS could help provide higher-density mapping of Earth and of other planets and moons as well as assisting with autonomous descents and landings.
Both flat optics and wavelength scanning offer new possibilities for lidar technology and are part of an array of investigations expected to unlock new opportunities in science and navigating distant worlds, Gramling said.
By Elizabeth Markham
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

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Why NASA’s Roman Mission Will Study Milky Way’s Flickering Lights

Source: NASA

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide one of the deepest-ever views into the heart of our Milky Way galaxy. The mission will monitor hundreds of millions of stars in search of tell-tale flickers that betray the presence of planets, distant stars, small icy objects that haunt the outskirts of our solar system, isolated black holes, and more. Roman will likely set a new record for the farthest-known exoplanet, offering a glimpse of a different galactic neighborhood that could be home to worlds quite unlike the more than 5,500 that are currently known.
Roman’s long-term sky monitoring, which will enable these results, represents a boon to what scientists call time-domain astronomy, which studies how the universe changes over time. Roman will join a growing, international fleet of observatories working together to capture these changes as they unfold. Roman’s Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey will focus on the Milky Way, using the telescope’s infrared vision to see through clouds of dust that can block our view of the crowded central region of our galaxy.
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Watch this video to learn about time-domain astronomy and how time will be a key element in the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s galactic bulge survey. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center“Roman will be an incredible discovery machine, pairing a vast view of space with keen vision,” said Julie McEnery, the Roman senior project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Its time-domain surveys will yield a treasure trove of new information about the cosmos.”
When Roman launches, expected by May 2027, the mission will scour the center of the Milky Way for microlensing events, which occur when an object such as a star or planet comes into near-perfect alignment with an unrelated background star from our viewpoint. Because anything with mass warps the fabric of space-time, light from the distant star bends around the nearer object as it passes close by. The nearer object therefore acts as a natural magnifying glass, creating a temporary spike in the brightness of the background star’s light. That signal lets astronomers know there’s an intervening object, even if they can’t see it directly.
In current plans, the survey will involve taking an image every 15 minutes around the clock for about two months. Astronomers will repeat the process six times over Roman’s five-year primary mission for a combined total of more than a year of observations.

“This will be one of the longest exposures of the sky ever taken,” said Scott Gaudi, an astronomy professor at Ohio State University in Columbus, whose research is helping inform Roman’s survey strategy. “And it will cover territory that is largely uncharted when it comes to planets.”
Astronomers expect the survey to reveal more than a thousand planets orbiting far from their host stars and in systems located farther from Earth than any previous mission has detected. That includes some that could lie within their host star’s habitable zone – the range of orbital distances where liquid water can exist on the surface – and worlds that weigh in at as little as a few times the mass of the Moon.
Roman can even detect “rogue” worlds that don’t orbit a star at all using microlensing. These cosmic castaways may have formed in isolation or been kicked out of their home planetary systems. Studying them offers clues about how planetary systems form and evolve.
Roman’s microlensing observations will also help astronomers explore how common planets are around different types of stars, including binary systems. The mission will estimate how many worlds with two host stars are found in our galaxy by identifying real-life “Tatooine” planets, building on work started by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope and TESS (the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite).
Some of the objects the survey will identify exist in a cosmic gray area. Known as brown dwarfs, they’re too massive to be characterized as planets, but not quite massive enough to ignite as stars. Studying them will allow astronomers to explore the boundary between planet and star formation.
Roman is also expected to spot more than a thousand neutron stars and hundreds of stellar-mass black holes. These heavyweights form after a massive star exhausts its fuel and collapses. The black holes are nearly impossible to find when they don’t have a visible companion to signal their presence, but Roman will be able to detect them even if unaccompanied because microlensing relies only on an object’s gravity. The mission will also find isolated neutron stars – the leftover cores of stars that weren’t quite massive enough to become black holes.
Astronomers will use Roman to find thousands of Kuiper belt objects, which are icy bodies scattered mostly beyond Neptune. The telescope will spot some as small as about six miles across (about 1 percent of Pluto’s diameter), sometimes by seeing them directly from reflected sunlight and others as they block the light of background stars.
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This animation compares signals from two planet detection methods: microlensing (top) and transit (bottom) for both high- and low-mass planets. Microlensing creates spikes in a star’s brightness, while transits have the opposite effect. Since both methods involve tracking the amount of light we receive from stars over time, astronomers will be able to use the same data set for both methods. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/CI LabA similar type of shadow play will reveal 100,000 transiting planets between Earth and the center of the galaxy. These worlds cross in front of their host star as they orbit and temporarily dim the light we receive from the star. This method will reveal planets orbiting much closer to their host stars than microlensing reveals, and likely some that lie in the habitable zone.
Scientists will also conduct stellar seismology studies on a million giant stars. This will involve analyzing brightness changes caused by sound waves echoing through a star’s gaseous interior to learn about its structure, age, and other properties.
All of these scientific discoveries and more will come from Roman’s Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey, which will account for less than a fourth of the observing time in Roman’s five-year primary mission. Its broad view of space will allow astronomers to conduct many of these studies in ways that have never been possible before, giving us a new view of an ever-changing universe.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Melbourne, Florida; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.
Download high-resolution video and images from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
By Ashley BalzerNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
​​Media Contact:Claire AndreoliNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center301-286-1940

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NASA’s Roman Mission Gears Up for a Torrent of Future Data

Source: NASA

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team is exploring ways to support community efforts that will prepare for the deluge of data the mission will return. Recently selected infrastructure teams will serve a vital role in the preliminary work by creating simulations, scouting the skies with other telescopes, calibrating Roman’s components, and much more.
Their work will complement additional efforts by other teams and individuals around the world, who will join forces to maximize Roman’s scientific potential. The goal is to ensure that, when the mission launches by May 2027, scientists will already have the tools they need to uncover billions of cosmic objects and help untangle mysteries like dark energy.
“We’re harnessing the science community at large to lay a foundation, so when we get to launch we’ll be able to do powerful science right out of the gate,” said Julie McEnery, Roman’s senior project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “There’s a lot of exciting work to do, and many different ways for scientists to get involved.”

Simulations lie at the heart of the preparatory efforts. They enable scientists to test algorithms, estimate Roman’s scientific return, and fine-tune observing strategies so that we’ll learn as much as possible about the universe.
Teams will be able to sprinkle different cosmic phenomena through a simulated dataset and then run machine learning algorithms to see how well they can automatically find the phenomena. Developing fast and efficient ways to identify underlying patterns will be vital given Roman’s enormous data collection rate. The mission is expected to amass 20,000 terabytes (20 petabytes) of observations containing trillions of individual measurements of stars and galaxies over the course of its five-year primary mission.
“The preparatory work is complex, partly because everything Roman will do is quite interconnected,” McEnery said. “Each observation is going to be used by multiple teams for very different science cases, so we’re creating an environment that makes it as easy as possible for scientists to collaborate.”
Some scientists will conduct precursor observations using other telescopes, including NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, and Japan’s PRIME (Prime-focus Infrared Microlensing Experiment) located in the South African Astronomical Observatory in Sutherland. These observations will help astronomers optimize Roman’s observing plan by identifying the best individual targets and regions of space for Roman and better understand the data the mission is expected to deliver.
Some teams will explore how they might combine data from different observatories and use multiple telescopes in tandem. For example, using PRIME and Roman together would help astronomers learn more about objects found via warped space-time. And Roman scientists will be able to lean on archived Hubble data to look back in time and see where cosmic objects were and how they were behaving, building a more complete history of the objects astronomers will use Roman to study. Roman will also identify interesting targets that observatories such as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope can zoom in on for more detailed studies.

It will take many teams working in parallel to plan for each Roman science case. “Scientists can take something Roman will explore, like wispy streams of stars that extend far beyond the apparent edges of many galaxies, and consider all of the things needed to study them really well,” said Dominic Benford, Roman’s program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. “That could include algorithms for dim objects, developing ways to measure star positions very precisely, understanding how detector effects could influence the observations and knowing how to correct for them, coming up with the most effective strategy to image stellar streams, and much more.”
One group is developing processing and analysis software for Roman’s Coronagraph Instrument. This instrument will demonstrate several cutting-edge technologies that could help astronomers directly image planets beyond our solar system. This team will also simulate different objects and planetary systems the Coronagraph could unveil, from dusty disks surrounding stars to old, cold worlds similar to Jupiter.
The mission’s science centers are gearing up to manage Roman’s data pipeline and archive and establishing systems to plan and execute observations. As part of a separate, upcoming effort, they will convene a survey definition team that will take in all of the preparatory information scientists are generating now and all the interests from the broader astronomical community to determine Roman’s optimal observation plans in detail.
“The team is looking forward to coordinating and funneling all the preliminary work,” McEnery said. “It’s a challenging but also exciting opportunity to set the stage for Roman and ensure each of its future observations will contribute to a wealth of scientific discoveries.”
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Melbourne, Florida; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.
By Ashley BalzerNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Media contact:
Claire AndreoliNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.301-286-1940

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NASA Highlights Media Opportunities for Upcoming Ring of Fire Eclipse

Source: NASA

On Saturday, Oct. 14, the Moon will pass between Earth and the Sun, giving people across the United States an opportunity to see an annular solar eclipse. NASA will host live coverage of the eclipse starting at 11:30 a.m. EDT. Media have an opportunity to interview NASA experts live prior to the eclipse, and those on site at two locations where NASA will broadcast live also can request interviews that day.   
Also known as a ring of fire eclipse, an annular solar eclipse happens when the Moon is at or near its farthest point from Earth. Because the Moon is farther away than it is during a total solar eclipse, the Moon appears smaller and doesn’t block out the entire Sun when it passes in front of our star. Instead, the Moon leaves a bright ring of Sun visible at the eclipse’s peak, creating the ring of fire effect.
Watch the agency’s eclipse coverage live on NASA Television, the agency’s website, and the NASA app. NASA also will stream the broadcast live on its Facebook, X, and YouTube social media accounts.
This eclipse will be visible along a narrow path stretching from Oregon to Texas in the U.S. Outside this path, people across the contiguous U.S. – as well as Puerto Rico and parts of Alaska and Hawaii – will see a partial solar eclipse, when part of the Sun is covered by the Moon without creating the ring of fire effect.
NASA’s coverage will be hosted from broadcast locations along the path of annularity in Kerrville, Texas, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. NASA’s coverage will include live views of the eclipse from multiple locations, interviews with scientists and other experts, as well as a live Q&A segment. Anyone can submit questions by using #askNASA.
The eclipse broadcast also will feature live views of sounding rockets launching from White Sands, New Mexico, carrying scientific instruments to study the eclipse’s effects on the atmosphere.  
Media must contact Sarah Frazier at sarah.frazier@nasa.gov to request on-site interviews in Albuquerque, and Elizabeth Landau at elizabeth.r.landau@nasa.gov for on-site interviews in Kerrville.
Ahead of the eclipse, NASA also has a limited number of live shot opportunities available for media beginning at 6 a.m. EDT on Friday, Oct. 13. Learn more and request an interview online.
Watch, Engage in Person
NASA’s interactive eclipse map provides details about the timing and type of eclipse visible in various locations.
Because the Sun is never completely covered by the Moon, all eclipse-watchers will need to use specialized solar filters or an indirect viewing method to safely watch the eclipse. It is never safe to look directly at the Sun without proper eye protection, even when most of the Sun is covered by the Moon. Two easy ways to view the eclipse are to use certified solar viewing glasses or build a pinhole projector from household materials. More information about safe eclipse viewing is available on NASA’s eclipse website.
The eclipse also provides a unique opportunity for citizen science. GLOBE Observer and Eclipse Soundscapes allow citizen scientists to submit observations on sounds, temperature, cloud cover, and more to help scientists understand how eclipses can affect Earth’s atmosphere and animal life. NASA also has STEM learning resources tied to the eclipse.
The next solar eclipse takes place on April 8, 2024, when a total solar eclipse will cross the U.S. from Texas to Maine. During this event, a partial solar eclipse will be visible throughout the contiguous U.S., as well as in Puerto Rico and parts of Alaska and Hawaii.
Learn more about the Oct. 14 eclipse at:
go.nasa.gov/Eclipse2023
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Karen Fox / Denise HillHeadquarters, Washington202-358-1275 / 202-308-2071karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / denise.hill@nasa.gov
Sarah FrazierGoddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.202-853-7191sarah.frazier@nasa.gov