New Cohort of KISS Study Programs Push the Frontiers of Space Exploration
Five new study topics have been selected by the Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) at Caltech to develop collaborations, frameworks, and mission concepts to transform the future of space exploration. The projects were competitively selected as part of KISS's annual cohort from over two dozen proposals.
KISS Study Programs focus on developing ideas and concepts that can revolutionize space science and engineering, leveraging Caltech's deep collaborative ties with JPL—which Caltech manages for NASA—and facilitating connections between academia, commercial industry, and government agencies. Each project includes an in-person workshop or symposium to bring together world-leading experts on the topic and culminates in a final report that serves as a springboard for future development, for example, space mission proposals, advancing new technology, and defining new fields of study.
The five projects bring together experts from across Caltech and other academic institutions, JPL, and the broader space science community to advance the frontier of space exploration in areas ranging from planetary science, astronomy, Earth science, and space engineering.
"We're excited to see this new cohort of studies come to life that reflect the breadth of space topics KISS covers," says Mike Watkins, professor of aerospace and geophysics and the Allen V. C. Davis and Lenabelle Davis Leadership Chair and director of KISS. "The KISS team works with the study leads to build on their initial ideas and convene the right community to amplify their impact in the wider space ecosystem."
KISS was established at Caltech in 2008 as a "think and do tank," linking the study elements of a think tank with an implementation element to take those ideas to the next level. The institute fosters collaboration between Caltech, JPL, and the world's space leaders by supporting projects that develop concepts to revolutionize space science and engineering.
A New Era of Space Science: Actionable and Affordable Mission Plans
Sona Hosseini (Research and Instrument Scientist, JPL)
Andy Klesh (Visiting Associate in Planetary Science; Associate Director and Chief Systems Engineer, The Brinson Exploration Hub; Lecturer in Electrical Engineering)
Mark McElroy (Benchmark Space Systems)
This study brings together experts from across science, engineering, and the emerging commercial space sector to tackle a central challenge: how to make ambitious Moon and Mars science missions dramatically more affordable and achievable in the near term. Rather than starting from scratch, the effort builds on prior work on low-cost missions, updating those insights with current technologies, industry practices, and operational realities. These developments include, for the first time, affordable commercial space capabilities that provide a credible pathway to lower-cost deep-space science missions without necessarily increasing mission risk, though this opportunity remains underutilized.
A key goal of the study is to move beyond high-level recommendations and instead produce a practical implementation-ready framework—akin to a handbook of principles and best practices—for low-cost missions, and that includes a sample mission design for a Moon or Mars orbiter.
To support the synergy between academia, government, and industry experts, this Symposium is organized in partnership with the Brinson Exploration Hub.
"The promise of more frequent and affordable access to space is now a reality," says Mark Simons, John W. and Herberta M. Miles Professor of Geophysics and director of the Brinson Exploration Hub. "This workshop will take on the challenge of taking advantage of the resulting opportunities to imagine scientifically impactful and exciting missions. Such missions lie at the core of the Brinson Exploration Hub ambitions, and so we look forward with anticipation to the discussions and insights engendered by this symposium."
Crucial Carbon Stores and Fluxes in Desert Environments
Carmen Blackwood (Principal Investigator, Sea Level Change Team, Caltech/JPL)
David Schimel (Research Scientist, Caltech/JPL)
Woody Fischer (Jean-Lou Chameau Professor of Geobiology; Divisional Academic Officer for Geological and Planetary Sciences, Caltech)
Michael Allen (UC Riverside)
Understanding the global carbon cycle—where carbon is stored in the planet and how it circulates through the environment—is critical for predicting how our planet will be impacted by global change. While efforts have been made to study carbon storage and cycling in biomes like the oceans and the frozen tundra, desert environments are an under-studied piece of the carbon-cycle puzzle.
In desert landscapes, carbon atoms are primarily stored in the form of inorganic carbon molecules in the so-called caliche layer (hardened underground deposits) and in groundwater, and in organic molecules and compounds in plants and soil. Increasing environmental degradation is threatening these underground carbon stores, but the extent to which this is occurring remains an open question.
Due to its arid environment and close proximity to local deserts, Southern California is a prime testbed for understanding carbon storage processes in such environments. Leveraging JPL's technological expertise, this study program aims to apply recently developed mission techniques and sensors to desert environments in order to quantify their role in the carbon cycle in the near and long term. Techniques like ground-penetrating radar (GPR), the airborne visible/infrared imaging spectrometer (AVIRIS), and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technologies have successfully mapped surface and aboveground carbon, and are giving a comprehensive view of desert vegetation and soils. The program proposes to extend this understanding to carbon deep underground, such as carbon stored within root systems, groundwaters, and deep soil deposits, by detailing observing needs and evaluating the technical feasibility of space-based technologies.
Through two workshops, the study program ultimately aims to understand and quantify the belowground distribution of carbon sinks; linking that distribution to surface and aboveground carbon pools and fluxes will be crucial to informing future adaptation, mitigation, and regeneration efforts.
Too Distant, Too Uncertain, Too Unforgiving: Assuring Autonomous Space Explorers We've Yet to Trust
Alessandro Pinto (Autonomy Assurance Lead, Office of Safety and Mission Success, Caltech/JPL)
Richard Murray (BS '85) (Thomas E. and Doris Everhart Professor of Control and Dynamical Systems and Bioengineering, Caltech)
Kerianne Hobbs (The Aerospace Corporation)
Across the vast distances of space, real-time operation of missions is impossible. Signals to and from a mission at Jupiter's moon Europa, for example, take 30 minutes to travel hundreds of millions of miles between Earth and the Jovian system. Other kinds of missions, like subsurface explorers venturing beneath ice shells or aerial or terrestrial swarms exploring Mars and its caves, must also be able to reliably operate autonomously and make their own decisions. Even crewed exploration, such as human missions to Mars, will face communication delays, limiting real-time support from Earth and imposing stress on astronauts who cannot manage every anomaly.
The increasing capabilities of artificial intelligence hold major promise for enabling spacecraft autonomy. In the unforgiving environments of space, it is necessary that these systems are resilient and trustworthy. This study program explores a fundamentally new approach to achieving "assurance"—essentially trustworthiness—for autonomous systems in space missions: making sure decisions are safe, reliable, and still aligned with mission goals as the system learns and adapts to changing conditions. The researchers aim to produce a set of standardized new algorithmic and computational tools to measure and achieve assurance.
Pulsar-based navigation and time keeping for space exploration
Ahmed Soliman (MS '17, PhD '23) (Scientist and Technologist, Caltech/JPL)
Walid Majid (Principal Research Scientist, Caltech/JPL)
Vikram Ravi (Professor of Astronomy, Caltech)
Paul Ray (PhD '95) (US Naval Research Laboratory)
Elizabeth Ferrara (University of Maryland and NASA Goddard)
Currently, spacecraft navigate using either GPS, which is confined to Earth-centric systems, or radio ranging from the ground, which requires dedicated radio telescope time and gets progressively more difficult as you travel deeper in space. As ancient seafaring explorers on Earth used the stars to guide them, this study program aims to explore the idea of using pulsars as navigation beacons for future spacecraft.
Pulsars are rapidly spinning dead stars that produce pulses of radio waves with precise timing, sweeping around with regularity like the beam of a lighthouse or the tick of a clock. Instead of depending only on signals from Earth, a spacecraft could use pulsars to locate itself and keep accurate time on its own, even far from home.
Navigation systems that leverage these predictable pulses can be expanded to planetary exploration beyond the Earth in a scalable way. A lunar, orbiting, or space-based system could operate with precision, independent of Earth-based infrastructure, ensuring the continuity of timekeeping and navigation information in the event of communication blackouts or failures of GPS-equivalent systems. Such a clock would not only support lunar-surface and orbit operations but also deep-space navigation architectures where reliance on Earth signals becomes increasingly impractical.
Bridging Exoplanet and Solar System Science
Dimitri Mawet (David Morrisroe Professor of Astronomy; Jet Propulsion Laboratory Senior Research Scientist; Director of Instrumentation for the Caltech Optical Observatories, Caltech/JPL)
Dave Stevenson (Marvin L. Goldberger Professor of Planetary Science, Emeritus, Caltech)
Scott Bolton (Southwest Research Institute)
Through the discovery of thousands of planets around other stars, astronomers have shown that planetary systems can look vastly different from our own. At the same time, spacecraft and telescopes have provided a wealth of detailed information about our own solar system's planets, moons, asteroids, and comets, and about the Sun itself. These two fields of space science—planetary science and exoplanetary science—have long informed one another, but recent discoveries and new observational capabilities are creating much stronger opportunities for direct comparative study.
This study program aims to bring the two areas of research together to symbiotically address open questions about the composition, dynamics, and evolution of planetary atmospheres, surfaces, and interiors as well as to probe the mysteries of magnetic fields, dusty plasmas, and planetary migration. As a world leader in both exoplanet and planetary fields, Caltech is uniquely positioned to bring these communities together.
Most exoplanet systems do not look like our solar system, and these differences provide a broad context for understanding how our own neighborhood compares to the rest of the galaxy. In contrast, our nearest planetary neighbors can be studied at a level of detail that is impossible to achieve in exoplanet surveys. For example, recent discoveries from the Juno mission have revolutionized the understanding of Jupiter and gas giant planets. Combining these with the capabilities of advanced telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope opens a new window into knowledge about exoplanets.
The study program will focus on three topics related to giant planets—their formation, their atmospheres, and their magnetic fields—as a kickoff for this synergistic approach.
