UMBC is approaching 30 years of collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a partnership that largely culminates under the university’s three major cooperative agreements with the agency. According to the NSF’s latest Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey, UMBC is among the nation’s top 10 universities receiving federal funding from NASA. In 2024, UMBC scientists, researchers, interns, and engineers have reached new levels of achievement in connection to this partnership—some even going as far as to the surface of the Moon…in a few years.
Take a look back at five ways UMBC collaborated with NASA in 2024:
UMBC goes to the Moon
Planetary scientist Mehdi Benna of UMBC’s Center for Space Sciences Technology is leading the team designing one of the lunar instruments chosen for implementation and deployment in NASA’s forthcoming Artemis III mission, humanity’s first return to the lunar surface in more than 50 years. The Lunar Environment Monitoring Station (LEMS) was selected as one of the first three candidate payloads to be a part of Artemis III, NASA’s mission that will send astronauts to explore the region near the lunar South Pole. Artemis III, currently planned to launch in 2026, will be the first time humans will return to the Moon’s surface since the historic Apollo program in 1969 – 1972.
(Photo courtesy of NASA)
HARP2 launches into space
The UMBC-designed Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter (HARP2) wide-angle imaging polarimeter instrument is part of NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) spacecraft mission, which launched into space in February. The PACE satellite provides insight into ocean health, air quality, and the effects of a changing climate. PACE’s mission data, which includes data captured by the HARP2 instrument, is now available for public access. The HARP2 team, which includes a host of students and alumni, is led by Vanderlei Martins, professor of physics, who is also the director of the NASA-affiliated Earth and Space Institute, based out of UMBC’s Physics Building.
AXIS X-ray telescope selected for final round
Nearly a year ago, a group of engineers and scientists including UMBC physicists became one of 10 teams to successfully submit a proposal to NASA to develop the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite (AXIS). In October 2024, the AXIS team was selected as one of the final two instrument designs selected for further development. The team will receive $5 million to flesh out their plans as part of what NASA calls a “Phase A study.” Adi Foord, assistant professor of physics, and Eileen Meyer, associate professor of physics, serve on the AXIS leadership team, and during the proposal development phase, Foord co-led the sub-team focused on supermassive black hole evolution.
NASA comes to campus
The university collaborated with the Goddard Space Flight Center to host the “NASA-UMBC Interaction Days,” an interactive, three-day series that took a closer look into the agency’s current research activity across a range of fields, with insight into how UMBC faculty, staff, and students can continue to work with Goddard scientists and engineers. The event series attracted more than 250 registrants.
UMBC-NASA earth science center awarded $47 million extension
The UMBC-led Goddard Earth Science Technology and Research (GESTAR) II center was awarded a two-year, $47 million extension this year to continue its cooperative agreement with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Since launching in 2021, GESTAR II has employed more than 150 scientists who are distributed across nearly all of GSFC’s earth science division laboratories. Over the years, GESTAR II researchers have been a part of teams that have developed an instrument that monitors water quality in the Chesapeake Bay, studied the environmental impacts of megafire smoke plumes, generated the first global map of cargo ship pollution, and much more.
More on UMBC’s partnership with NASA
Tags: CSST, ESI, gestar2, GPHI, NASA, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Research
