Funder: NASA Headquarters
Due Dates: February 25, 2025 (Step-1) | June 2, 2025 (Step-2)
Funding Amounts: Research Investigations: up to $800,000 (ground/non-ISS flight, 3–4 yrs) or $1,000,000 (ISS, 4 yrs); Early Career: up to $600,000 (3–4 yrs); New NASA Investigator: $200,000 (1 yr); OSDR Analytical: $250,000 (2 yrs); Tissue Sharing: $350,000 (3 yrs)
Summary: Supports research on how living systems respond to space exploration environments, with a focus on Precision Health and Space Crops, excluding ISS rodent/vertebrate experiments.
Key Information: No ISS rodent/vertebrate experiments allowed; ground-based vertebrate studies are permitted; Step-1 proposal required for Step-2 submission.
Description
This NASA opportunity, part of the annual ROSES (Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences) omnibus, solicits research proposals in space biology to advance understanding of how living systems respond to the unique environments encountered during space exploration. The program emphasizes two main research areas: Precision Health (biological responses to spaceflight-relevant stressors, aging, disease, and genetic diversity) and Space Crops (plant and microbe responses to space environments). Proposals must address at least one of these emphases and align with key scientific questions from the 2023 Decadal Survey, "Thriving in Space."
Important update: Proposals involving rodent or any other vertebrate experiments on the International Space Station (ISS) are no longer accepted. Ground-based vertebrate studies remain eligible.
Due Dates
- Step-1 Proposals: February 25, 2025
(Mandatory; only Step-1 submitters may submit Step-2)
- Step-2 Proposals: June 2, 2025
Funding Amount
- Research Investigations (RI):
- Ground or non-ISS flight: up to $800,000 (3–4 years)
- ISS flight: up to $1,000,000 (4 years; may extend to 5 years if needed)
- Early Career Research Investigations (ECRI): up to $600,000 (3–4 years)
- New NASA Investigator (NNI): $200,000 (1 year)
- Open Science Data Repository (OSDR) Analytical Investigations: $250,000 (2 years)
- Tissue Sharing Investigations (TSI): $350,000 (3 years)
Multiple awards are anticipated in each category, subject to proposal merit and available funding.
Eligibility
- Lead Institution: Must be a U.S. organization (university, nonprofit, for-profit, or government). The Principal Investigator (PI) must be from a U.S. institution.
- Team Members: May include non-U.S. participants (except from China), but NASA funds cannot be provided to foreign organizations.
- Early Career: ECRI applicants must have completed their terminal degree or medical residency within 10 years of the Step-2 due date and not have served as PI on a large NASA life sciences grant (> $500K).
- New NASA Investigator: Must not have previously received NASA BPS, HRP, NSBRI, TRISH, or EPSCoR funding as PI.
- Other: Proposals must be submitted electronically via NSPIRES or Grants.gov.
Application Process
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Step-1 Proposal:
- Required for all applicants.
- Submit via NSPIRES or Grants.gov by February 25, 2025.
- No budget or detailed science narrative; cover page and programmatic data only.
- Only those invited after Step-1 may submit a Step-2 proposal.
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Step-2 Proposal:
- Due June 2, 2025.
- Must follow dual-anonymous peer review (DAPR) guidelines: submit an anonymized proposal, a non-anonymized Expertise & Resources document, and a Total Budget file.
- Required forms and templates are provided in the application package.
- Proposals must include an Open Science and Data Management Plan (OSDMP).
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Review:
- Proposals are evaluated for scientific merit, relevance, and cost.
- DAPR is used to minimize bias; team qualifications are assessed only after scientific merit review.
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Special Requirements:
- For balloon or ISS flight studies, additional forms and feasibility letters are required.
- For animal studies, compliance with animal welfare regulations and just-in-time IACUC approval is required.
Project Types
- Research Investigations (RI): Ground, parabolic, balloon, suborbital, or ISS studies.
- Early Career Research Investigations (ECRI): For eligible early-career PIs; ground or non-ISS flight.
- New NASA Investigator (NNI): For PIs new to NASA funding; ground-based only.
- OSDR Analytical Investigations: Data analysis using NASA’s Open Science Data Repository.
- Tissue Sharing Investigations (TSI): Use of archived tissues/specimens from previous spaceflight-relevant studies.
Additional Information
- No ISS rodent/vertebrate experiments: Only ground-based vertebrate studies are allowed.
- Dual-anonymous peer review: Strict anonymization required in proposal documents.
- Open Science: Data and results must be made publicly available per NASA policy.
- Travel: PIs must budget for travel to the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research (ASGSR) annual meetings.
- Reporting: Annual and final reports required, including data deposition in NASA repositories.
External Links
Contact Information
For technical questions about specific research emphases or project types, contact the relevant program officer listed above or see the full list of NASA program officers.