Title 51 — National and Commercial Space ProgramsRelease 119-73not60

§60604 Research Activities

Title 51 › Subtitle Subtitle VI— Earth Observations › Chapter 606— SPACE WEATHER › § 60604

Last updated Apr 5, 2026|Official source

Summary

Require the heads of NSF, NASA, and the Department of Defense to keep doing basic research on the Sun, near-Earth space, and space weather. They must fund competitive, peer-reviewed projects for research, modeling, and monitoring that follow the science goals in the National Academies’ decadal surveys. Say that solar and space physics needs teams across disciplines and agencies. NASA and NSF should fund competitive multidisciplinary science centers that link research and operations. NSF, NOAA, and NASA must pursue multidisciplinary research. NASA must fly missions that meet the decadal survey goals. An interagency working group, after advice from its advisory group, must create ways to move research, models, and tools from agencies like NASA, NSF, and USGS to NOAA and DoD, improve links between modeling and forecast centers, and pass operational needs from NOAA and DoD forecasters to NASA, NSF, and USGS.

Full Legal Text

Title 51, §60604

National and Commercial Space Programs — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)The Director of the National Science Foundation, the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Secretary of Defense, shall—

(1)continue to carry out basic research on heliophysics, geospace science, and space weather; and

(2)support competitive, peer-reviewed proposals for conducting research, advancing modeling, and monitoring of space weather and its impacts, including the science goals outlined in decadal surveys in solar and space physics conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

(b)(1)Congress finds that the multidisciplinary nature of solar and space physics creates funding challenges that require coordination across scientific disciplines and Federal agencies.

(2)It is the sense of Congress that science centers could coordinate multidisciplinary solar and space physics research. The Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Director of the National Science Foundation should support competitively awarded grants for multidisciplinary science centers that advance solar and space physics research, including research-to-operations and operations-to-research processes.

(3)The Director of the National Science Foundation, the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, shall each pursue multidisciplinary research in subjects that further the understanding of solar physics, space physics, and space weather.

(c)The Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration should implement missions that meet the science objectives identified in solar and space physics decadal surveys conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

(d)The interagency working group shall, upon consideration of the advice of the advisory group, develop formal mechanisms to—

(1)transition the space weather research findings, models, and capabilities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, the United States Geological Survey, and other relevant Federal agencies, as appropriate, to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Defense;

(2)enhance coordination between research modeling centers and forecasting centers; and

(3)communicate the operational needs of space weather forecasters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Department of Defense, as appropriate, to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, and the United States Geological Survey.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

51 U.S.C. § 60604

Title 51 — National and Commercial Space Programs

Last Updated

Apr 5, 2026

Release point: 119-73not60