Open Innovation Success Stories
Read how prize competitions, challenges, crowdsourcing, and citizen science opportunities advance technology supporting NASA and benefit the solvers who participate.
What is open innovation?
Open innovation describes initiatives that collaborate directly with the public / “the crowd” through opportunities such as prize competitions, challenges, crowdsourcing, and citizen science, with the idea that NASA can learn from the ingenuity and creativity of the public while also stimulating interest in our missions.
Newest Story
NASA’s Spot the Station App Developed by and for the People
NASA developed the Spot the Station app, which allows users to track and view the International Space Station, in collaboration with the public. Through three separate crowdsourcing competitions, global communities were invited to design key components of the new app.
Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing Stories
NASA’s Spot the Station App Developed by and for the People
Through crowdsourcing competitions, NASA gained direct feedback to create key components of the Spot the Station app.
Public Participation in Machine Learning Bolsters Extraterrestrial Research
NASA ran two machine learning-based open science challenges in which solvers worldwide were invited to analyze chemical data.
NASA Opportunities Fuel Growth and Entrepreneurship for Bronco Space Club Students
Bronco Space matured more than just space technology as a result of winning funds from NASA’s TechLeap Prize competition. It expanded its capacity to mature space technologies long into the future.
NASA Challenge Gives Space Thruster Commercial Boost
As part of the Cube Quest challenge, Team Miles sent its CubeSat aboard the Artemis I mission in 2022. Since participating, the company Miles Space was formed by some members of Team Miles.
Solver Spotlight: Shobhana Gupta
NASA scientist Shobhana Gupta manages crowdsourcing activities for the public and participates in challenges NASA runs for its workforce.
Going Beyond the Challenge for New and Continued Success
For many solvers, success doesn’t stop when the NASA challenge ends. Past participants have gone on to work with NASA in other ways and take their technology to new heights.
Solver Spotlight: Eric Hinterman
Eric Hinterman and his friends have collaborated on more than 30 government challenges over three years.
Solver Spotlight: Lauren Fell
Challenges often provide more than just monetary awards. Some have prompted many participants to develop skills outside their traditional domains. Just ask star solver Lauren Fell.
Citizen Science Stories
Four Asteroids Named After NASA Volunteers
Four amateur astronomers were honored for their contributions to astronomy and planetary science by having asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter named after them.
NASA’s TESS Spots Record-Breaking Stellar Triplets
Professional and amateur astronomers teamed up with artificial intelligence to find an unmatched stellar trio, thanks to cosmic “strobe lights” captured by NASA’s TESS.
NASA Citizen Scientists Spot Object Moving 1 Million Miles Per Hour
Citizen scientists working on NASA’s Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project have helped discover an object moving so fast that it will escape the Milky Way’s gravity and shoot into intergalactic space.
How NASA Citizen Science Fuels Future Exoplanet Research
Exoplanet research has a long involvement with citizen science.
Hubble Goes Hunting for Small Main Belt Asteroids
Volunteers from around the world known contributed to the identification of a largely unseen population of smaller asteroids.
A Solar Neighborhood Census, Thanks to NASA Citizen Science
Through Backyard Worlds, citizen scientists indicate whether objects in sets of images could be “nearby” by looking for movement of objects relative to the background.
Learn More about Open Innovation Opportunities
Past Publications
Open Innovation at NASA
Boosting NASA Higher, Faster, and Farther
Organizations across the globe harness the perspectives, expertise, and enthusiasm of “the crowd” outside their walls to reduce costs, accelerate projects, enhance creativity, and better engage stakeholders. NASA is doing the same, collaborating with diverse entities nationally and internationally. Read how open innovation projects from October 2020 to September 2022 advanced NASA’s mission and benefited participants.
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NASA's Open Innovation newsletter called the Solver Connection keeps you up to date quarterly with open opportunities, news, events, and more.
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