NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is soliciting information on how private sector innovation could help the space agency make the most out of a $500 million budget to obtain data on Earth’s changing surface.JPL issued a Request For Information Nov. 19 seeking “industry feedback on whether a commercial purchase, a public-private partnership, or other arrangement between the U.S. space industry and NASA could provide the scientific community with substantially the same capabilities as multiple NISARs.” NISAR is the NASA-Indian Space Research Organization Synthetic-Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite scheduled to launch in 2023.<snip>For most Earth Science missions, NASA owns and operate the satellites. In this case, however, NASA headquarters and JPL officials concluded that it would cost far more than $500 million currently budgeted for the Surface Deformation and Change space segment to obtain the targeted observations listed in the Decadal Survey along the traditional route. As a result, the space agency is looking for ways the thriving commercial space sector in general and the commercial SAR market specifically could help.
