NASA channels 2026 research funds through older call, science chief says
Nicola Fox says NASA did not issue ROSES-26 because the 2025 research call remained open. The agency plans to open ROSES-27 no later than January 2027.
Loading… Բեռնվում է…
Nicola Fox says NASA did not issue ROSES-26 because the 2025 research call remained open. The agency plans to open ROSES-27 no later than January 2027.
NASA directed fiscal 2026 research funds through its still-open 2025 call for proposals rather than issuing a 2026 edition, Nicola Fox, associate administrator of its Science Mission Directorate, said at an October 26 community town hall. Eos’s October 29 account described Fox’s explanation for the missing annual call. The amount directed through the older call remains unspecified.
Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences, or ROSES, invites proposals for basic and applied research across NASA’s science directorate. NASA released ROSES-25 in July 2025 rather than its traditional February target. In a January 22, 2026 announcement, the agency planned to release ROSES-26 that July and keep ROSES-25 open until then.
NASA’s October 20 announcement instead set out a plan to release ROSES-27 no later than January 2027, with about 50 research program elements expected. That is a planned release window, not an opened competition; ROSES-25 remains the current call.
The research timetable accompanies a change to how NASA selects science missions, announced on October 21. Fox outlined Competition Model 2.0, or CM2.0, at the town hall and said NASA would use the process for ROSES-27. ROSES is the call for research proposals; CM2.0 sets out the revised approach to selecting missions.
The existing two-step process requires teams to submit detailed mission designs alongside their scientific case in the first stage. Under CM2.0, proposals would compete first on their science, with detailed implementation work moved to the second stage. Teams would do that work in partnership with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA estimates that the change would shorten the interval from inviting proposals to selecting missions by 45%.
The NIH–NASA competition seeks better measurements in laboratory drug-safety models, with submissions scheduled to open on 15 December 2026.
2 min
Fox said the process would be open to principal investigators—the researchers leading proposals—without major university or commercial backing. Kathleen Mandt, a planetary scientist at Goddard, said it would let more scientists put forward ideas, use mission-design funds more effectively and better protect technical staff at NASA centers.
Goddard is estimated to have lost nearly a third of its workforce since January 2025, while JPL laid off 11% in 2025. A town-hall question asked how the depleted centers could manage the new process. NASA’s flight-program lead scientist Curt Niebur said their engineers had consistently found solutions to implementation challenges and that NASA trusted them to continue.
Town-hall participants questioned whether less detailed initial designs could allow technically infeasible missions to advance. Fox said the first stage would still require some mission design, evaluated alongside the science, but did not specify how much. Alejandro Soto, a planetary scientist and engineer at the Southwest Research Institute, questioned what uncertainty margins NASA would require for estimates of mass, volume and cost, replacing the traditional 30% margin he described.
NASA’s October 20 announcement listed the following ROSES-25 opportunities. A notice of intent is an advance notice that a researcher plans to submit a proposal. The mandatory notice deadlines for the two December proposal calls have already passed.
| Opportunity | Preliminary deadline | Proposal deadline |
|---|---|---|
| C.4: Planetary Science Enabling Facilities | None listed | November 10, 2026 |
| D.4: Theoretical and Computational Astrophysics Networks | Mandatory notice: October 15, 2026 — passed | December 3, 2026 |
| A.16: Cryosphere — Earth’s frozen regions | Mandatory notice: October 16, 2026 — passed | December 4, 2026 |
| A.18: Geosphere — the solid Earth | Mandatory notice: November 16, 2026 | January 15, 2027 |
| D.3F: Combined astrophysics observing opportunity | None listed | January 28, 2027 — Phase 1 |
| B.8: Heliophysics Spaceflight Science Foundations — study of the Sun and its effects in space | Step 1: November 20, 2026 | Step 2: February 5, 2027 |
| B.7: Heliophysics Low-Cost Access to Space | Step 1: November 20, 2026 | Step 2: March 16, 2027 |
The changes follow NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman’s March 2026 announcement of Ignition, initiatives intended to pursue President Trump’s National Space Policy by accelerating missions and emphasizing human exploration of the Moon and Mars. NASA presents ROSES-27 as one way to connect research with those exploration goals.
NASA says the announced release window gives researchers and institutions time to prepare proposals, build teams and plan support for students and early-career scientists. While ROSES-25 deadlines continue, the agency’s next planned step is to release ROSES-27 no later than January 2027.
The programme brings together national laboratories, universities and industry partners, with plans for a sensor-equipped test bed and self-adjusting pilot production lines.
2 min
Previously seen only through its infrared heat, the dusty feature is visible in reflected starlight, allowing researchers to test a possible collision origin.
4 min