{"id":361754,"date":"2026-02-04T01:12:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T15:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/?p=950709"},"modified":"2026-02-04T01:12:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T15:12:32","slug":"nasa-space-to-soil-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=361754","title":{"rendered":"NASA Space to Soil Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Rapid advances in commercial space, artificial intelligence, and edge computing are transforming what is possible for Earth observation. By pushing more intelligence onboard, missions can move from passively collecting data to actively interpreting and responding to changing surface conditions in near-real time, enabling more targeted observations and dramatically improving the value of data returned to the ground. Within this context, land-focused applications such as regenerative agriculture, sustainable forestry, and broader land resilience efforts stand to benefit enormously from satellites that can adapt what, when, and how they sense based on dynamic environmental signals and algorithmic insight rather than fixed schedules or static acquisition plans.<\/p>\n

NASA Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) invites participants to design small satellite (SmallSat) mission concepts that leverage adaptive sensing and onboard processing to enhance regenerative agriculture, forestry, or a similar land resilience objective.\u200b Participants must work within onboard power, compute, and bandwidth constraints characteristic of SmallSat missions, focusing on how to orchestrate existing land observation algorithms into an efficient, responsive onboard intelligence layer.\u200b Both hardware-oriented and software-oriented solutions\u2014or combinations of the two\u2014are encouraged.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s primary objective for this challenge is to advance\u00a0computational<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0systems<\/strong>\u00a0approaches for adaptive sensing or onboard processing on SmallSat missions.\u00a0The goal is not to develop new agricultural or forestry science but rather to improve how SmallSats sense, process, and deliver information to enable these applications.<\/p>\n

Award: <\/strong>$400,000 in total prizes<\/p>\n

Challenge Open Date: <\/strong>January 30, 2026<\/p>\n

Submission Close Date:<\/strong> May 4, 2026<\/p>\n

For more information, visit:<\/strong> https:\/\/nasa-space-to-soil.org\/<\/a> <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rapid advances in commercial space, artificial intelligence, and edge computing are transforming what is possible for Earth observation. By pushing more intelligence onboard, missions can move from passively collecting data to actively interpreting and responding to changing surface conditions in near-real time, enabling more targeted observations and dramatically improving the value of data returned to [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15705,16320,15787,15988,15966,15788],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-361754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-center-of-excellence-for-collaborative-innovation-coeci","category-coeci-news","category-get-involved","category-opportunities-to-contribute-to-nasa-missions-get-involved","category-prizes-challenges-crowdsourcing-news","category-prizes-challenges-and-crowdsourcing-program"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t