NASA announces heliophysics proposal opportunity with November deadline

NASA announced a new Heliophysics Low-Cost Access to Space proposal opportunity on October 7, 2026, through its ROSES-2025 research programme. The call covers instruments, technologies and flight investigations using sounding rockets, high-altitude balloons and CubeSats, giving research teams a route to propose scientific measurements and technology demonstrations. First-stage proposals are due November 20.

Amendment 78 introduces the opportunity as section B.7 of ROSES-2025. NASA’s notice says the release occurs “on or about October 7, 2026”. It sets a second-stage proposal deadline of March 16, 2027. Those dates concern submissions; the notice does not announce selected teams or flight dates.

What NASA requires from science and technology proposals

Proposed flight investigations must identify themselves as either “science” or “science-enabling”. Both categories require a connection to specific scientific questions, but the distinction changes what applicants must demonstrate about the relationship between their technology and the research it could support.

For science investigations, teams must show that their proposed objectives can advance the scientific questions they identify. A demonstration of new technology can be part of those objectives. The requirement therefore allows instrument development within an investigation whose proposed work is intended to deliver scientific progress.

The short announcement does not specify total funding, individual award sizes, eligibility or the expected number of selections. It names Sabrina Savage and Ennio Sanchez as contacts for questions about B.7, through hq-hpd-lcas@mail.nasa.gov. Detailed application conditions cannot be established from the announcement alone.

What earlier CubeSats measured about the Sun

Earlier small-satellite work provides a concrete example of the measurements such instruments can make. In a paper posted to arXiv on January 4, 2018, Christopher S. Moore and colleagues described results from the Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer, or MinXSS. The research collaboration included the University of Colorado, Southwest Research Institute and NASA Goddard.

MinXSS was designed to measure solar soft X-rays and investigate their influence on Earth’s ionosphere and thermosphere. Its observations also supported studies of solar flares and active regions. The researchers reported early measurements tracking soft X-ray variations between 0.8 and 12 kiloelectronvolts, a measure of photon energy, and deriving plasma temperatures from the satellite’s data.

The mission’s data guide describes MinXSS as a student project at the University of Colorado Boulder and its Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. More than 40 graduate students, three undergraduates and one high-school student participated, working with scientists and engineers on design, construction, testing and operations.

According to that guide, MinXSS-1 deployed from the International Space Station on May 16, 2016, began normal operations on June 9 and re-entered on May 6, 2017. It collected thousands of solar soft X-ray spectra. MinXSS-2 experienced a communication anomaly on January 9, 2019, after approximately a month of observations; the guide describes that mission as shorter than planned.

How small satellites fit space-weather research

In a separate December 2021 announcement, NASA selected four CubeSats—CubIXSS, SunCET, DYNAGLO and WindCube—through its Heliophysics Flight Opportunities in Research and Technology programme, working with Space Weather Science Application. NASA described these standardized small satellites as generally less expensive than larger missions and capable of faster construction and deployment.

NASA connected those earlier selections to gaps in observations relevant to space-weather forecasting. CubIXSS was intended to study hot plasma and soft X-ray emissions, whose variations drive changes in Earth’s upper atmosphere. SunCET was intended to examine how coronal mass ejections—large clouds of solar plasma and magnetic fields—accelerate in the Sun’s middle corona.

Those earlier missions establish the scientific context for small-spacecraft experiments. The MinXSS measurements demonstrate instrument capabilities, while its second mission also records an operational limitation. Neither the historical results nor the October announcement establishes improved operational forecasts from the new opportunity. Its confirmed next milestones are the November 20, 2026, and March 16, 2027, proposal deadlines.