NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office Celebrates 25 Years 

Introduction 

Many Earth science missions, both airborne and on orbit, can trace their origins to the early technology developments that produced the groundbreaking instruments, instrument components (the parts or subsystems that make up an instrument), and information systems that enabled these missions. To give one recent example, NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem mission (PACE) mission, launched on February 8, includes two instruments – the Ocean Color Instrument and the Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 – that were directly derived from technology development efforts.

Since 1998, NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) has been the entity that fulfills this technology testing and development function within NASA’s Earth Science Division. March 15, 2023, marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of ESTO. As with many organizations, the quarter-century milestone is a natural time to reflect on the past and look toward the future. 

Following an opening historical overview of ESTO, the majority of this article summarizes a 2023 analysis of the ESTO portfolio of investments, taking a retrospective look at the accomplishments from the first 25 years. 

Overview of ESTO History

By the 1990s, NASA Earth Science recognized that untested and underdeveloped technologies had the potential to stall the progress of mission implementation, occasionally idling large mission teams while bugs were worked out. (For context, this would be around the time the first missions of the Earth Observing System (EOS) were preparing to launch.) ESTO was formed to help manage and nurture technologies outside of the framework of flight missions, to allow new ideas to incubate and mature fully before being picked up for operational use.

Since its inception, ESTO has employed an open, flexible, science-driven strategy that relies on competition and peer review to select promising technologies for Earth science. While early efforts focused on remote sensing instruments and data systems, solicitation topic areas gradually expanded to span the diversity of needs and requirements, from lidar and sensor webs to efforts that focus on a particular science theme, e.g., wildfire science and mitigation. 

Over the last 25 years, ESTO has awarded and managed more than 1100 technology projects for future science measurements. This forward-looking portfolio has enabled new Earth-observing capabilities, informed Earth Science Decadal Surveys and strategic planning, and generated numerous infusions and spinoffs. 

While every technology project has a story to tell, ESTO has assembled a series of 30 highlights focusing on some of the more notable impacts. Visit the dedicated 25th Anniversary Project webpage to learn about some of the most notable ESTO technologies that have been infused into Earth science missions, science campaigns, or other operational or commercial activities over the past quarter century.

Twenty-fifth Anniversary Analysis

In 2023, ESTO undertook a review of its portfolio to catalog past achievements. The results compiled to date are summarized in the subsections that follow. Taken together, they clearly show the remarkable impact of ESTO’s 25 years of early, deliberate technology development to Earth science as well as other space science and commercialization activities. 

A Diversified Portfolio

ESTO technology projects find their origins in a wide range of people and institutions across the country. Principal Investigators (PIs) hail from more than 200 different organizations – from colleges and universities to corporations and non-profits to NASA field centers and Federal labs – in 42 states. More than 2000 collaborators, co-investigators, and other partners also contribute their expertise, from over 400 organizations in 44 states – see Figure 1. 

In response to the 44 solicitations ESTO has released since 1998, this community of technologists, engineers, and scientists has supplied an abundance of new ideas and methods for NASA Earth science endeavors. The ESTO portfolio addresses the full breadth of Earth science measurements, from remote sensing instruments and instrument subsystems to advanced information systems, machine learning, and modeling to highly targeted areas such as quantum sensing, wildfire technologies, and Earth digital twins. New technologies on orbit, in the air, and on the ground are helping to improve Earth System science measurement processes, from predictions to observations and initial data collection to analysis and information access.

Measuring Advancements

ESTO makes regular assessments of Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) for most projects in the portfolio, including at the outset of the project, at the final review, and at least annually during the period of funding. (Some projects, particularly studies and operational transition efforts, are not assigned TRLs). The TRL scales – see Figure 2 – provide a useful framework to evaluate the current state of a technology as well as track development progress over time.

In 1998, the NASA Earth Science Division set a goal for ESTO to annually advance 25% of currently funded technology projects at least one TRL. This metric has been surpassed every year since. For example, in Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23), 31% of active ESTO projects advanced at least one TRL. An analysis of all the TRL-reportable projects that have graduated from ESTO funding yields a more complete and impressive picture of advancement – see Figure 3 and Figure 4. In short, these Figures show that most projects that go to ESTO with the goal of maturing technology do in fact do so. 

ESTO PIs have reported at least 269 infusions of their technologies into Earth science missions, science campaigns, and other operational or commercial activities. The breakdown of verified infusions since 1998 includes: 

The transition of ESTO technologies to other sources of funding for further development also occurs regularly. Several hundred projects have transitioned to other NASA programs, other Federal agencies, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards, or internal funding through the originating organization. ESTO initiated a study in 2023 to further codify these transitions to better understand the paths taken by technology efforts, both before and after ESTO investment.

Publications and Presentations

Just as with basic science research, the sharing of ideas and findings is crucial to the advancement of technology. To date, more than 600 articles on ESTO technologies have appeared in peer-reviewed journals, including in Science, Nature, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Environmental Science and Technology, and various journals from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). These numbers are even more impressive, considering that in the early years of the office, many projects were not documented in journal articles. 

Conference papers and presentations by ESTO projects – at meetings convened by the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE), IEEE, and others – number well above 2500 and, as with journal citations, are undercounted historically.

Since 2001, ESTO has also hosted a nearly annual conference. Now known as the Earth Science Technology Forum (ESTF), the meeting presents an opportunity for PIs to further showcase their work. There have been 19 iterations of this event held during the last 23 years, generating some 1300 presentations to more than 5000 attendees. The 2024 ESTF has been scheduled for June 11–12, 2024, in Crystal City, VA. 

Patents

At least 23 patents have been issued for ESTO technologies. An example from 2023 is Integrated Multiwavelength Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) Lidar Transmitter from Guangning Yang and Jeffrey Chen [both at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center] (Patent Number: US 11,493,602 B1; Issued: 11/08/2022).

Students

As with many research and development activities, students are integral to the work and success of technology development teams. Since ESTO’s founding, at least 1180 students from 171 institutions have worked on various ESTO-funded projects. Aided by their experiences, students who take part in these projects have often gone on to work in the aerospace industry and in related fields. As an example, the Photo below shows students involved in the 2019 ESTO–Amazon Web Services (AWS) DeepRacer Challenge.

In Fiscal Year 2023 alone, at least 157 students from 48 institutions were involved with active technology development projects. Typically, these students are pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees, but occasionally high school students also have had the opportunity to participate.

Conclusion

Although often separated by years or decades from the missions and science they enable, technology developments remain a critical first step in NASA’s Earth Science endeavors. Many of the projects being awarded today will lead to new capabilities in the 2030s and beyond; some in revolutionary ways and others as incremental steps in a continuum of observations. Still others will “fail” or be overcome by alternative approaches, imparting lessons about feasibility and informing alternative paths forward. ESTO is committed to continuing its careful approach to technology development for the next quarter century and looks forward to facilitating the next generation of Earth science measurements.

Philip Larkin
Earth Science Technology Office
Philip.larkin@nasa.gov