...two upcoming solicitations for ISS research proposals. Both solicitations will be made available for commercial, governmental, and academic researchers over the next month. The two Requests for Proposals (RFPs) will be in the fields of Materials Science and Earth Observational Science. The RFPs will open various facilities onboard the ISS to research communities, offering an innovative, quick path for scientists to benefit from the Station’s on orbit capabilities. Both solicitations are aimed to return data as quickly as possible. In the case of the Earth Observational Science RFP, results will be in researchers’ hands as early as spring 2013.
CASIS will support both RFPs through grant funding, facilitation of service provider partnerships and flight coordination to and from the ISS, if required. The ISS National Lab supports a variety of platforms to exploit the space environment in the development and testing of new materials for both commercial and academic investigators. Through these solicitations, CASIS continues in its mission to promote the full utilization of the ISS.
The Materials Science RFP focuses on research that can be exposed to the extreme conditions of space in order to understand and make use of the physical and chemical properties influenced by microgravity, atomic oxygen, low pressure and/or vast temperature variations. Research could include the development and testing of new materials and coatings, as well as the applied development of sensor components and systems. This RFP will use the NanoRacks External Platform.
The Earth Observational Science RFP revolves around research—both fundamental and applied—using imaging and spectroscopic facilities already onboard the ISS to study the Earth’s atmosphere, surface, and oceans. This RFP solicits proposals from a variety of fields ranging from agricultural land use and urban planning, ocean dynamics and color, to lightning, cloud and pollution research.
These solicitations follow CASIS’ first announced RFP: “Advancing Protein Crystallization in Microgravity,” which is currently accepting submissions through August 22, 2012.