UT System Plans to Boost Space Research as Federal Funding Skyrockets

By Rachel N. Madison

Reporting Texas

NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center and the University of Texas System are developing plans to expand their collaboration under a new Space Act Agreement signed in January.

Archie Holmes, UT System executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, led the latest round of conversations this month as the partners map out the research collaboration, student engagement and workforce development outlined in the agreement. The conversations will continue over the coming months, UT spokesperson Ben Wright said.

“We built the agreement specifically to give us space to work collaboratively through joint research, workforce development, STEM engagement, training, technology and development,” Keya Briscoe of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston said.

The Space Act Agreement will unite UT centers and institutions across all 13 UT campuses with NASA staff, programs and projects. This includes UT-Austin’s Center for Space Research and Texas Advanced Computing Center, which have been involved with NASA programs and projects for years.

NASA’s collaboration with university centers is crucial, TACC data director Niall Gaffney said.

The TACC holds the fastest academic computing system in the country, Frontera, which directly supports NASA computing technology and databases for projects like the SPHEREx, Firefly, and Mars rovers.

Gaffney said the opportunities the center provides for UT students interested in technology, science and research, or those previously unexposed to STEM fields.

“The more technology and data experience you can have will help accelerate careers,” he said.

More importantly, actively participating in research keeps students interested and passionate in the work and shows them possibilities for careers after graduation, he said.

As a UT alumnus who received all of his advanced astronomy degrees from UT-Austin, Gaffney said he welcomes the chance to give back to students.

He believes the center can “help people see that this is a possibility for them.”

Gaffney said he isn’t yet aware of how the new agreement will affect TACC collaborations but hopes that the center will expand its scope of projects. His main goal would be working with NASA to preserve archival data “under one roof” and make it readily accessible to researchers across fields.

Lori Madruger of UT-Austin’s Center for Space Research says she is excited for the opportunities the new agreement may afford researchers.

“Signing this Space Act Agreement lowers the barrier of having to focus on terms and conditions, when really we just want to push forward technology and innovation,” she said.

The Center for Space Research, which has around 50 full-time research staff and over 30 graduate and undergraduate researchers, supports a variety of joint projects, including NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment missions under UT research scientist Himanshu Save.

This research uses twin satellites to measure changes in Earth’s gravity over time, which can help to measure the global water cycle, droughts, glacier melts and sea level rise, Save said.

“There is no other measurement that can measure the entire water column of the Earth,” he said.

The collaboration isn’t new. UT has worked with NASA since the 1960s. In fact, Longhorn Alan Bean was the fourth man to walk on the moon in the 1969 Apollo 12 mission. Today, UT aerospace graduate Judd Frieling leads the flight control team on NASA’s Artemis II mission, set to launch in March.

In total, 12 UT Austin graduates went on to become NASA astronauts, according to the UT System.

Of course, not all UT students will go on to become space-travelers or control booth leaders. Many disciplines not directly related to space exploration have huge implications for the field, said Briscoe, from medicine to environmental science to cyber security, law and HR.

“Every job you could think of that you could do plays a part in supporting human space flight,” Briscoe said.

She believes the UT NASA partnership helps foster what she calls a “row to pipeline of new generational talent.”

The TACC hosts a series of summer institutes for advanced researchers as well as K-12 students on STEM subjects.

The CSR hosts a NASA grant-funded STEM Enhancement in Earth Science program for high school students, which draws thousands of applicants from across the country, program manager Margaret Baguio said.

The UT center and NASA also collaborate to host a summer professional development training program for teachers aimed at equipping them for classroom research and student accessibility.

The new agreement doesn’t include additional funding for research. The UT System will instead rely heavily on UT’s federal grant funding from agencies like the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense and Department of Energy.

While UT-Austin has faced significant funding cuts for liberal arts and humanities programs and research under the Trump administration, funding for scientific research is on the rise.

UT-Austin spent $1.37 billion on research in 2025. Of that, 62% was from federal sources, more than doubling the school’s federal funding over the past decade.

UT System’s total research expenditures have increased by nearly 90% over the past decade, totalling $4.7 billion for fiscal 2024, according to UT System’s Data Dashboard.

In December, the Texas Space Commission awarded UT-Austin with a $9.2 million grant to develop its Space Domain Awareness project lab, focused around orbital tracking research.

The Texas Advanced Computing Center funding is “pretty stable,” Gaffney said. This is largely thanks to continued funding from the National Science Foundation which funds their projects and systems, which go back to supporting the foundation’s own research.

While funding is secure for some centers, Gaffney believes that inter-entity collaborations are important for uniting STEM funds to maximize the efficiency and efficacy of all field research.

“There’s only so much in the budget for any of this,” he said. “It’s about combining streams to raise every boat.”