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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
ResilienX employees Angelo Niforatos, left, and Ryan Pleskach, right, overview the NASA safety tools integrated into the company’s commercial system, July 11, 2025, at the ResilienX Headquarters in Syracuse, New York. Credit: ResilienX A future with advanced air mobility aircraft populating the skies will require the U.S. to implement enhanced preflight planning that can mitigate potential risks well before takeoff – and NASA is working to develop the tools to make that happen.
Preflight planning is critical to ensuring safety in the complex, high-risk environments of the future airspace. Timely, predictive, and up-to-date risk assessment within a single platform makes it much easier for drone or air taxi operators to check flight plans for high-risk concerns.
NASA is working on tools to deliver those services, and in June, the agency and aviation safety company ResilienX Inc. demonstrated how these tools can be integrated into commercial systems.
During a series of tests conducted at ResilienX’s facility in Syracuse, New York, researchers used NASA services that allowed flight operators to submit flight plans prior to departure, obtain risk assessment results, and then decide whether to proceed with flights or change their flight plans and re-assess risks. Allowing operators to perform these tasks quickly reduces the safety risk to flight passengers as well as humans on the ground.
The three NASA-developed services are intended to assess unique risks associated with highly automated aircraft flying at low altitudes over cities.
The partnership was managed under a Phase III NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract, which is an extension of prior work to assess weather-related risks. This collaboration is already leading to direct technology transfer of safety systems into ResilienX’s platform. The partnership is also intended to provide indirect benefits for ResilienX partners and customers, such as the U.S. Air Force and regional operators, helping to advance the overall safety of future airspace operations.
This work is led by NASA’s System-Wide Safety project under the Airspace Operations and Safety program in support of the agency’s Advanced Air Mobility mission. The mission seeks to deliver data, findings, and recommendations to guide the industry’s development of future air taxis and drones.
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Last Updated Aug 22, 2025 EditorDede DiniusContactTeresa Whitingteresa.whiting@nasa.gov Related Terms
Armstrong Flight Research Center Advanced Air Mobility Aeronautics Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate Airspace Operations and Safety Program Drones & You Small Business Innovation Research / Small Business System-Wide Safety Explore More
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By NASA
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Hong Kong/S. Zhang et al.; Radio: ATNF/CSIRO/ATCA; H-alpha: UK STFC/Royal Observatory Edinburgh; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk In 2009, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory released a captivating image: a pulsar and its surrounding nebula that is shaped like a hand.
Since then, astronomers have used Chandra and other telescopes to continue to observe this object. Now, new radio data from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), has been combined with Chandra’s X-ray data to provide a fresh view of this exploded star and its environment, to help understand its peculiar properties and shape.
At the center of this new image lies the pulsar B1509-58, a rapidly spinning neutron star that is only about 12 miles in diameter. This tiny object is responsible for producing an intricate nebula (called MSH 15-52) that spans over 150 light-years, or about 900 trillion miles. The nebula, which is produced by energetic particles, resembles a human hand with a palm and extended fingers pointing to the upper right in X-rays.
Labeled Version of the ImageX-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Hong Kong/S. Zhang et al.; Radio: ATNF/CSIRO/ATCA; H-alpha: UK STFC/Royal Observatory Edinburgh; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk The collapse of a massive star created the pulsar when much of the star crashed inward once it burned through its sustainable nuclear fuel. An ensuing explosion sent the star’s outer layers outward into space as a supernova.
The pulsar spins around almost seven times every second and has a strong magnetic field, about 15 trillion times stronger than the Earth’s. The rapid rotation and strong magnetic field make B1509-58 one of the most powerful electromagnetic generators in the Galaxy, enabling it to drive an energetic wind of electrons and other particles away from the pulsar, creating the nebula.
In this new composite image, the ATCA radio data (represented in red) has been combined with X-rays from Chandra (shown in blue, orange and yellow), along with an optical image of hydrogen gas (gold). The areas of overlap between the X-ray and radio data in MSH 15-52 show as purple. The optical image shows stars in the field of view along with parts of the supernova’s debris, the supernova remnant RCW 89. A labeled version of the figure shows the main features of the image.
Radio data from ATCA now reveals complex filaments that are aligned with the directions of the nebula’s magnetic field, shown by the short, straight, white lines in a supplementary image. These filaments could result from the collision of the pulsar’s particle wind with the supernova’s debris.
Complex Filaments Aligned with the Directions of the Nebula’s Magnetic FieldX-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Hong Kong/S. Zhang et al.; Radio: ATNF/CSIRO/ATCA; H-alpha: UK STFC/Royal Observatory Edinburgh; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk By comparing the radio and X-ray data, researchers identified key differences between the sources of the two types of light. In particular, some prominent X-ray features, including the jet towards the bottom of the image and the inner parts of the three “fingers” towards the top, are not detected in radio waves. This suggests that highly energetic particles are leaking out from a shock wave — similar to a supersonic plane’s sonic boom — near the pulsar and moving along magnetic field lines to create the fingers.
The radio data also shows that RCW 89’s structure is different from typical young supernova remnants. Much of the radio emission is patchy and closely matches clumps of X-ray and optical emission. It also extends well beyond the X-ray emission. All of these characteristics support the idea that RCW 89 is colliding with a dense cloud of nearby hydrogen gas.
However, the researchers do not fully understand all that the data is showing them. One area that is perplexing is the sharp boundary of X-ray emission in the upper right of the image that seems to be the blast wave from the supernova — see the labeled feature. Supernova blast waves are usually bright in radio waves for young supernova remnants like RCW 89, so it is surprising to researchers that there is no radio signal at the X-ray boundary.
MSH 15–52 and RCW 89 show many unique features not found in other young sources. There are, however, still many open questions regarding the formation and evolution of these structures. Further work is needed to provide better understanding of the complex interplay between the pulsar wind and the supernova debris.
A paper describing this work, led by Shumeng Zhang of the University of Hong Kong, with co-authors Stephen C.Y. Ng of the University of Hong Kong and Niccolo’ Bucciantini of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, has been published in The Astrophysical Journal and is available at https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/adf333.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/chandra
https://chandra.si.edu
Visual Description
This release features a composite image of a nebula and pulsar that strongly resembles a cosmic hand reaching for a neon red cloud.
The neon red cloud sits near the top of the image, just to our right of center. Breaks in the cloud reveal interwoven strands of gold resembling spiderwebs, or a latticework substructure. This cloud is the remains of the supernova that formed the pulsar at the heart of the image. The pulsar, a rapidly spinning neutron star only 12 miles in diameter, is far too small to be seen in this image, which represents a region of space over 150 light-years across.
The bottom half of the image is dominated by a massive blue hand reaching up toward the pulsar and supernova cloud. This is an intricate nebula called MSH 15-52, an energetic wind of electrons and other particles driven away from the pulsar. The resemblance to a hand is undeniable. Inside the nebula, streaks and swirls of blue range from pale to navy, evoking a medical X-ray, or the yearning hand of a giant, cosmic ghost.
The hand and nebula are set against the blackness of space, surrounded by scores of gleaming golden specks. At our lower left, a golden hydrogen gas cloud extends beyond the edges of the image. In this composite, gold represents optical data; red represents ATCA radio data; and blue, orange, and yellow represent X-ray data from Chandra. Where the blue hand of the nebula overlaps with the radio data in red, the fingers appear hazy and purple.
News Media Contact
Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Aug 20, 2025 EditorLee MohonContactCorinne M. Beckingercorinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov Related Terms
Astrophysics Chandra X-Ray Observatory Marshall Astrophysics Marshall Space Flight Center Nebulae Pulsars The Universe Explore More
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By NASA
From top left to right, NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Artemis II pilot; Reid Wiseman, Artemis II commander; CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, Artemis II mission specialist, and NASA astronaut Christina Koch, Artemis II mission specialist, suit up and walk out of the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Aug. 11.Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett Lee esta nota de prensa en español aquí.
NASA is opening media accreditation for multi-day events to introduce America’s newest astronaut class and provide briefings for the Artemis II crewed test flight around the Moon. The activities will take place in September at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
After evaluating more than 8,000 applications, NASA will debut its 2025 class of astronaut candidates during a ceremony at 12:30 p.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 22. Following the ceremony, the candidates will be available for media interviews.
The astronaut selection event will stream live on NASA+, Netflix, Amazon Prime, NASA’s YouTube channel, and the agency’s X account.
The selected candidates will undergo nearly two years of training before they graduate as flight-eligible astronauts for agency missions to low Earth orbit, the Moon, and ultimately, Mars.
Next, NASA will host a series of media briefings on Tuesday, Sept. 23, and Wednesday, Sept. 24, to preview the upcoming Artemis II mission, slated for no later than April 2026. The test flight, a launch of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft, will send NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on an approximately 10-day mission around the Moon.
Artemis II will help confirm the systems and hardware needed for human deep space exploration. This mission is the first crewed flight under NASA’s Artemis campaign and is another step toward new U.S.-crewed missions on the Moon’s surface that will help the agency prepare to send American astronauts to Mars.
The Artemis II events briefings will stream live on the agency’s YouTube channel and X account. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms.
Following the briefings, NASA will host an Artemis II media day at NASA Johnson on Sept. 24, to showcase mission support facilities, trainers, and hardware for Artemis missions, as well as offer interview opportunities with leaders, flight directors, astronauts, scientists, and engineers.
Media who wish to participate in person must contact the NASA Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov and indicate which events they plan to attend. Confirmed media will receive additional details about participating in these events. A copy of NASA’s media accreditation policy is available on the agency’s website. Media accreditation deadlines for the astronaut candidate selection and Artemis II events are as follows:
U.S. media interested in attending in person must RSVP no later than 5 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 17. International media without U.S. citizenship must RSVP no later than 5 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 10. Media requesting in-person or virtual interviews with the astronaut candidates, Artemis experts, or the Artemis II crew must submit requests to the NASA Johnson newsroom by Wednesday, Sept. 17. In-person interview requests are subject to the credentialing deadlines noted above.
Information for the astronaut candidate selection and Artemis II events, including briefing participants, is as follows (all times Eastern):
Monday, Sept. 22
12:30 p.m.: 2025 Astronaut Candidate Selection Ceremony
Tuesday, Sept. 23
11 a.m.: Artemis II Mission Overview Briefing
Lakiesha Hawkins, acting deputy associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis launch director, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida Judd Frieling, lead Artemis II ascent flight director, NASA Johnson Jeff Radigan, lead Artemis II flight director, NASA Johnson Rick Henfling, lead Artemis II entry flight director, NASA Johnson Daniel Florez, test director, Exploration Ground Systems, NASA Kennedy 1 p.m.: Artemis II Science and Technology Briefing
Matt Ramsey, Artemis II mission manager, NASA Headquarters Howard Hu, Orion Program manager, NASA Johnson Jacob Bleacher, manager, Science, Technology Utilization, and Integration, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters Mark Clampin, acting deputy associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters Media who wish to participate by phone must request dial-in information by 5 p.m., Sept. 22, by emailing NASA Johnson’s newsroom.
Wednesday, Sept. 24
10 a.m.: Artemis II Crew News Conference
Reid Wiseman, commander Victor Glover, pilot Christina Koch, mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist Media who wish to participate by phone must request dial-in information by 5 p.m., Sept. 23, by emailing NASA Johnson’s newsroom.
Learn more about how NASA leads human spaceflight efforts at:
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space
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Jimi Russell / Rachel Kraft
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
james.j.russell@nasa.gov / rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov
Courtney Beasley / Chelsey Ballarte
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-910-4989
courtney.m.beasley@nasa.gov / chelsey.n.ballarte@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Aug 20, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
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By NASA
Dr. Steven “Steve” Platnick took the NASA agency Deferred Resignation Program (DRP). His last work day was August 8, 2025. Steve spent more than three decades at, or associated with, NASA. While he began his civil servant career at the NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in 2002, his Goddard association went back to 1993, first as a contractor and then as one of the earliest employees of the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET), a cooperative agreement between the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and GSFC’s Earth Science Division. At JCET Steve helped lead the development of the Atmosphere Physics Track curricula. Previously, he had held an NRC post-doctoral fellow at the NASA’s Ames Research Center. Along with his research work on cloud remote sensing from satellite and airborne sensors, Steve served as the Deputy Director for Atmospheres in GSFC’s Earth Sciences Division from January 2015–July 2024.
Dr. Steve Platnick Image credit: NASA During his time at NASA, Steve played an integral role in the sustainability and advancement of NASA’s Earth Observing System platforms and data. In 2008, he took over as the Earth Observing System (EOS) Senior Project Scientist from Michael King. In this role, he led the EOS Project Science Office, which included support for related EOS facility airborne sensors, ground networks, and calibration labs. The office also supported The Earth Observer newsletter, the NASA Earth Observatory, and other outreach and exhibit activities on behalf of NASA Headquarter’s Earth Science Division and Science Mission Directorate (further details below). From January 2003 – February 2010, Steve served as the Aqua Deputy Project Scientist.
Improving Imager Cloud Algorithms
Steve was actively involved in the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Science Team serving as the Lead for the MODIS Atmosphere Discipline Team (cloud, aerosol and clear sky products) since 2008 and as the NASA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP)/JPSS Atmosphere Discipline Lead/co-Lead from 2012–2020. His research team enhanced, maintained, and evaluated MODIS and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) cloud algorithms that included Level-2 (L2) Cloud Optical/Microphysical Properties components (MOD06 and MYD06 for MODIS on Terra and Aqua, respectively) and the Atmosphere Discipline Team Level-3 (L3) spatial/temporal products (MOD08, MYD08). The L2 cloud algorithms were developed to retrieve thermodynamic phase, optical thickness, effective particle radius, and derived water path for liquid and ice clouds, among other associated datasets. Working closely with longtime University of Wisconsin-Madison colleagues, the team also developed the CLDPROP continuity products designed to bridge the MODIS and VIIRS cloud data records by addressing differences in the spectral coverage between the two sensors; this product is currently in production for VIIRS on Suomi NPP and NOAA-20, as well as MODIS Aqua. The team also ported their CLDPROP code to Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) R-series Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) and sister sensors as a research demonstration effort.
Steve’s working group participation included the Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) Cloud Assessment Working Group (2008–present); the International Cloud Working Group (ICWG), which is part of the Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites (CGMS), and its original incarnation, the Cloud Retrieval Evaluation Working (CREW) since 2009; and the NASA Observations for Modeling Intercomparison Studies (obs4MIPs) Working Group (2011–2013). Other notable roles included Deputy Chair of the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) Science Definition Team (2011–2012) and membership in the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) Science Definition Team (2009–2011), the ABI Cloud Team (2005–2009), and the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) Mission Concept Team (2010-2011).
Steve has participated in numerous major airborne field campaigns over his career. His key ER-2 flight scientist and/or science team management roles included the Monterey Area Ship Track experiment (MAST,1994), First (International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Regional Experiment – Arctic Cloud Experiment [FIRE-ACE, 1998], Southern Africa Fire-Atmosphere Research Initiative (SAFARI-2000), Cirrus Regional Study of Tropical Anvils and Cirrus Layers – Florida Area Cirrus Experiment (CRYSTAL-FACE, 2002), and Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling (TC4, 2007).
Supporting Earth Science Communications
Through his EOS Project Science Office role, Steve has been supportive of the activities of NASA’s Science Support Office (SSO) and personally participated in many NASA Science exhibits at both national and international scientific conferences, including serving as a Hyperwall presenter numerous times.
For The Earth Observer newsletter publication team in particular, Steve replaced Michael King as Acting EOS Senior Project Scientist in June 2008, taking over the authorship of “The Editor’s Corner” beginning with the May–June 2008 issue [Volume 20, Issue 3]. The Acting label was removed beginning with the January–February 2010 issue [Volume 22, Issue 1]. Steve has been a champion of continuing to retain a historical record of NASA science team meetings to maintain a chronology of advances made by different groups within the NASA Earth Science community. He was supportive of the Executive Editor’s efforts to create a series called “Perspectives on EOS,” which ran from 2008–2011 and told the stories of the early years of the EOS Program from the point of view of those who lived them. He also supported the development of articles to commemorate the 25th and 30th anniversary of The Earth Observer. Later, Steve helped guide the transition of the newsletter from a print publication – the November–December 2022 issue was the last printed issue – to fully online by July 2024, a few months after the publication’s 35th anniversary. The Earth Observer team will miss Steve’s keen insight, historical perspective, and encouragement that he has shown through his leadership for the past 85 issues of print and online publications.
A Career Recognized through Awards and Honors
Throughout his career, Steve has amassed numerous honors, including the Goddard William Nordberg Memorial Award for Earth Science in 2023 and the Verner E. Suomi Award from the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in 2016. He was named an AMS Fellow that same year. He received two NASA Agency Honor Awards – the Exceptional Achievement Medal in 2008 and the Exceptional Service Medal in 2015.
Steve received his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in electrical engineering from Duke University and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively. He earned a Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences from the University of Arizona.
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By NASA
6 min read
NASA, IBM’s ‘Hot’ New AI Model Unlocks Secrets of Sun
This image from June 20, 2013 shows the bright light of a solar flare and an eruption of solar material shooting through the sun’s atmosphere, called a prominence eruption. Shortly thereafter, this same region of the sun sent a coronal mass ejection out into space — a phenomenon which can cause magnetic storms that degrade communication signals and cause unexpected electrical surges in power grids on Earth. NASA’s new heliophysics AI foundation model, Surya, can help predict these storms. NASA/Goddard/SDO NASA is turning up the heat in solar science with the launch of the Surya Heliophysics Foundational Model, an artificial intelligence (AI) model trained on 14 years of observations from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.
Developed by NASA in partnership with IBM and others, Surya uses advances in AI to analyze vast amounts of solar data, helping scientists better understand solar eruptions and predict space weather that threatens satellites, power grids, and communication systems. The model can be used to provide early warnings to satellite operators and helps scientists predict how the Sun’s ultraviolet output affects Earth’s upper atmosphere.
Preliminary results show Surya is making strides in solar flare forecasting, a long-standing challenge in heliophysics. Surya, with its ability to generate visual predictions of solar flares two hours into the future, marks a major step towards the use of AI for operational space weather prediction. These initial results surpass existing benchmarks by 15%. By providing open access to the model on HuggingFace and the code on GitHub, NASA encourages the science and applications community to test and explore this AI model for innovative solutions that leverage the unique value of continuous, stable, long-duration datasets from the Solar Dynamics Observatory.
Illustrations of Solar Dynamics Observatory solar imagery used for training Surya: Solar coronal ultraviolet and extreme ultraviolet images from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) and solar surface velocity and magnetic field maps from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI). NASA/SDO The model’s success builds directly on the Solar Dynamics Observatory’s long-term database. Launched in 2010, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory has provided an unbroken, high-resolution record of the Sun for nearly 15 years through capturing images every 12 seconds in multiple wavelengths, plus precise magnetic field measurements. This stable, well-calibrated dataset, spanning an entire solar cycle, is uniquely suited for training AI models like Surya, enabling them to detect subtle patterns in solar behavior that shorter datasets would miss.
Surya’s strength lies in its foundation model architecture, which learns directly from raw solar data. Unlike traditional AI systems that require extensive labeling, Surya can adapt quickly to new tasks and applications. Applications include tracking active regions, forecasting flare activity, predicting solar wind speed, and integrating data from other observatories including the joint NASA-ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory mission and NASA’s Parker Solar Probe.
“We are advancing data-driven science by embedding NASA’s deep scientific expertise into cutting-edge AI models,” said Kevin Murphy, chief science data officer at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “By developing a foundation model trained on NASA’s heliophysics data, we’re making it easier to analyze the complexities of the Sun’s behavior with unprecedented speed and precision. This model empowers broader understanding of how solar activity impacts critical systems and technologies that we all rely on here on Earth.”
These images compare the ground-truth data (right) with model output (center) for solar flares, which are the events behind most space weather. Surya’s prediction is very close to what happened in reality (right). These preliminary results suggest that Surya has learned enough solar physics to predict the structure and evolution of a solar flare by looking at its beginning phase. NASA/SDO/ODSI IMPACT AI Team Solar storms pose significant risks to our technology-dependent society. Powerful solar events energize Earth’s ionosphere, resulting in substantial GPS errors or complete signal loss to satellite communications. They also pose risks to power grids, as geomagnetically induced currents from coronal mass ejections can overload transformers and trigger widespread outages.
In commercial aviation, solar flares can disrupt radio communications and navigation systems while exposing high-altitude flights to increased radiation. The stakes are even higher for human spaceflight. Astronauts bound for the Moon or Mars may need to depend on precise predictions to shelter from intense radiation during solar particle events.
The Sun’s influence extends to the growing number of low Earth orbit satellites, including those that deliver global high-speed internet. As solar activity intensifies, it heats Earth’s upper atmosphere, increasing drag that slows satellites, pulls them from orbit, and causes premature reentry. Satellite operators often struggle to forecast where and when solar flares might affect these satellites.
The “ground truth” solar activity is shown on the top row. The bottom row shows solar activity predicted by Surya. NASA/SDO/ODSI IMPACT AI Team “Our society is built on technologies that are highly susceptible to space weather,” said Joseph Westlake, Heliophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters. “Just as we use meteorology to forecast Earth’s weather, space weather forecasts predict the conditions and events in the space environment that can affect Earth and our technologies. Applying AI to data from our heliophysics missions is a vital step in increasing our space weather defense to protect astronauts and spacecraft, power grids and GPS, and many other systems that power our modern world.”
While Surya is designed to study the Sun, its architecture and methodology are adaptable across scientific domains. From planetary science to Earth observation, the project lays the foundational infrastructure for similar AI efforts in diverse domains.
Surya is part of a broader NASA push to develop open-access, AI-powered science tools. Both the model and training datasets are freely available online to researchers, educators, and students worldwide, lowering barriers to participation and sparking new discoveries.
The process for creating Surya. Foundation models enhance the utility of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory datasets and create a base for building new applications. NASA/ODSI IMPACT AI Team Surya’s training was supported in part by the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot, a National Science Foundation (NSF)-led initiative that provides researchers with access to advanced computing, datasets, and AI tools. The NAIRR Pilot brings together federal and industry resources, such as computing power from NVIDIA, to expand access to the infrastructure needed for cutting-edge AI research.
“This project shows how the NAIRR Pilot is uniting federal and industry AI resources to accelerate scientific breakthroughs,” said Katie Antypas, director of NSF’s Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure. “With support from NVIDIA and NSF, we’re not only enabling today’s research, we’re laying the groundwork for a national AI network to drive tomorrow’s discoveries.”
Surya is part of a larger effort championed and supported by NASA’s Office of the Chief Science Data Officer and Heliophysics Division, the NSF , and partnering universities to advance NASA’s scientific missions through innovative data science and AI models. Surya’s AI architecture was jointly developed by the Interagency Implementation and Advanced Concepts Team (IMPACT) under the Office of Data Science and Informatics at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; IBM; and a collaborative science team.
The science team, assembled by NASA Headquarters, consisted of experts from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas; the University of Alabama in Huntsville in Huntsville, Alabama; the University of Colorado Boulder in Boulder, Colorado; Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia; Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey; NASA’s SMD’s Heliophysics Division; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California; and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.
For a behind-the-scenes dive into Surya’s architecture, industry and academic collaborations, challenges behind developing the model, read the blog post on NASA’s Science Data Portal:
https://science.data.nasa.gov/features-events/inside-surya-solar-ai-model
For more information about NASA’s strategy of developing foundation models for science, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/artificial-intelligence-science
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Last Updated Aug 20, 2025 Related Terms
Science & Research Artificial Intelligence (AI) Heliophysics Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) The Sun The Sun & Solar Physics Explore More
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