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OpenAstro — Funding and Grants

This document maps the realistic funding landscape for OpenAstro across all three stages. It distinguishes between grants OpenAstro can realistically apply for now, those requiring a track record, and those requiring institutional affiliation. All programs, URLs, and deadlines are accurate as of early 2026.

The honest baseline: OpenAstro is unlikely to receive major NSF or NASA funding until Stage 2 is operational and at least one peer-reviewed paper has been published. The first 12-18 months will require self-funding, small grants, and in-kind contributions. This document focuses on the realistic path, not the aspirational one.

Part 1: NSF Programs

NSF Division of Astronomical Sciences (AST)

The two most relevant programs within NSF AST are:

Astronomy and Astrophysics Grants (AAG) - URL: https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/astronomy-astrophysics-research-grants - What it funds: Standard research grants for observational, theoretical, and computational astronomy. Supports salaries, equipment, graduate students. - Relevance to OpenAstro: A Stage 3 application for network operations and science analysis would fit here. The application requires a PI at a US academic institution. OpenAstro cannot apply directly — a faculty collaborator must be the PI, with OpenAstro as a component of the project. - Award range: $100K-$500K over 3 years (typical for observational programs). - Deadline: Typically October annually for standard grants (check grants.gov for current solicitation). - Prerequisite: At minimum, a published methods paper and a demonstrated network. Not a Stage 1 target.

Advancing Integration of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (AMPS) - Less relevant. Skip.

Astronomical Sciences: Instrumentation and Facilities (ATI) - URL: https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/ati-advanced-technologies-and-instrumentation - What it funds: Development of new instrumentation or infrastructure for astronomy. This is the more relevant program than AAG for OpenAstro's early stages. - Why it fits: A grant to develop the heterogeneous calibration pipeline and the distributed scheduling system as reusable infrastructure fits ATI's mandate. The pitch would be "We are building software infrastructure that any professional or amateur observer can use to contribute to a distributed network" — not "fund our science." - Award range: $100K-$600K. Larger awards require more institutional infrastructure. - Prerequisite: Requires PI at US institution. The ATI bar on novelty is high — the calibration and scheduling problem must be framed as unsolved infrastructure, which it legitimately is for heterogeneous networks. - Stage target: Stage 1 completion (with a preprint) is the minimum to have a credible ATI application.

NSF PAARE (Partnerships in Astronomy and Astrophysics Research and Education) - URL: https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/paare-partnerships-in-astronomy-and-astrophysics-research-and-education - What it funds: Partnerships between research-active institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges, or minority-serving institutions. - Why it might fit: If OpenAstro partners with an HBCU that has an astronomy program, a PAARE grant could fund network nodes, student participation, and data analysis. This is a longer-term path but worth flagging. - Stage target: Stage 2-3.

NSF CAREER - For junior faculty (within 5 years of first academic appointment). If OpenAstro's founder or a close collaborator is in this window and has an academic position, a CAREER grant that includes OpenAstro as the research component is viable. Award: $500K-$1M over 5 years.

NSF Major Facilities and Infrastructure

Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure (MSRI) - For projects between $4M and $30M. Not relevant until Stage 3 is mature and the network has demonstrated sustained scientific output over several years. - Flagging for completeness.

Part 2: NASA Programs

NASA Citizen Science Seed Funding Program

  • URL: https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/grant-solicitations/roses-solicitation/ (search "citizen science" in ROSES)
  • What it is: NASA solicits citizen science projects through its ROSES (Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences) annual omnibus. The specific program element changes year to year but has historically funded 3-5 citizen science projects per year at $150K-$300K each.
  • Current status: The "Citizen Science for Earth Systems Program" (CSESP) exists for Earth science. For astrophysics, citizen science funding comes through specific calls in ROSES — look for "Citizen Science" in the ROSES solicitation appendices.
  • Requirements: Must have a NASA affiliation or partner with a NASA center researcher. The data must be relevant to NASA science priorities (exoplanets, transients, and asteroid characterization all qualify).
  • Key contact: NASA Astrophysics Citizen Science Coordinator — check https://science.nasa.gov/citizenscience for current contact.
  • Stage target: A Stage 2 network with one published paper, partnered with a researcher at a NASA-funded institution, could submit to ROSES.

NASA Astrophysics Data Analysis Program (ADAP)

  • URL: Included annually in ROSES.
  • What it funds: Analysis of existing data from NASA missions. If OpenAstro is processing or cross-correlating data from TESS, Fermi, or Swift alongside ground-based data, an ADAP grant is conceivable.
  • Award range: $100K-$400K.
  • Stage target: Stage 2, after at least one publication using multi-facility data.

NASA Astrophysics Explorers

Not relevant for OpenAstro — Explorers is for satellite missions.

Part 3: Private Foundations

Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

  • URL: https://www.moore.org/initiative-strategy-detail?initiativeId=data-driven-discovery
  • What it funds: The Moore Foundation's Science Program historically funded data-driven discovery in science, including astronomical surveys, open data infrastructure, and scientific software. The Astronomy program funded the Zooniverse platform, LSST software development, and various open science infrastructure projects.
  • Current status: The Moore Foundation closed its Science Program to new grants in 2023. As of early 2026, they are not actively accepting science grant applications. This may change — monitor their website for program reopening.
  • Why it was relevant: The Foundation's emphasis on open source, open data, and infrastructure (rather than specific results) was a near-perfect fit for OpenAstro. Flag this for future monitoring.

Heising-Simons Foundation

  • URL: https://www.hsfoundation.org/programs/science/astronomy-and-astrophysics/
  • What it funds: Heising-Simons has an Astronomy and Astrophysics program that funds:
  • Early-career researchers at the postdoc or junior faculty level
  • Instrumentation development
  • Research grants for novel observational programs
  • Specific relevance: The 51 Pegasi b Fellowship (https://www.hsfoundation.org/programs/science/51-pegasi-b-fellowship/) funds postdoctoral researchers in planetary astronomy. If OpenAstro develops a relationship with a postdoctoral fellow working on exoplanet follow-up (TESS follow-up, TTV analysis), the fellow's research could naturally incorporate OpenAstro as their primary data source.
  • Grant application process: Letters of inquiry accepted on a rolling basis. Grants to organizations (not individuals) require reaching out to program staff before submitting a full proposal.
  • Stage target: Stage 2. The Heising-Simons website states they prefer organizations with track records.

Dunlap Institute Small Grants

  • URL: https://www.dunlap.utoronto.ca
  • What it is: The Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto funds astronomical instrumentation, software development, and community-building activities. They have historically supported pro-am collaborative work.
  • Small grants: The Dunlap Institute does not maintain a public-facing small grants program, but they do fund visiting researchers, collaborative projects, and instrumentation development through direct relationships. The path in is through a collaboration with a Dunlap-affiliated researcher.
  • Why relevant: The Dunlap Institute has been involved with citizen science and open astronomy projects. Dunlap researchers have contributed to Zooniverse, CHIME (fast radio burst detection), and distributed observing campaigns. A direct email to the Director of the Dunlap Institute (currently Josh Speagle or similar — check current website) proposing a collaboration is worth doing at Stage 2.

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

  • URL: https://sloan.org/programs/research/data-and-computational-research
  • What it funds: The Sloan Foundation funds computational research infrastructure, scientific software (through the Software for Science program), and data-driven discovery. They funded AstroPy, astroquery, and other core Python astronomy packages.
  • Relevance: If OpenAstro's pipeline is genuinely novel open-source infrastructure (which the heterogeneous calibration component is), an application to Sloan's Scientific Software program is realistic.
  • Award range: $100K-$500K for software grants.
  • Stage target: Stage 1 or 2 — the software must exist and be demonstrably useful. A preprint using the software and a GitHub repo with community usage are the minimum prerequisites.
  • Application process: Concept paper submitted by invitation or via the online portal. Sloan is responsive to cold inquiries if the project is well-framed.

Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA)

  • URL: https://rescorp.org
  • What it funds: RCSA funds early-career researchers at primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs). Their Cottrell Scholar Awards go to faculty combining research and teaching.
  • Specific program: The Scialog (Science + Dialogue) series funds collaborative, interdisciplinary research. A Scialog on "Distributed Astronomical Observation" or similar is not currently running, but RCSA creates new Scialogs regularly.
  • Stage target: If OpenAstro's founder or a collaborator is faculty at a PUI, RCSA is a realistic Stage 1-2 target.

Part 4: Smaller Grants and Prize Programs

Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) Education Programs

  • URL: https://astrosociety.org
  • ASP occasionally funds small grants for education and public outreach in astronomy. These are small ($1K-$10K) but can fund specific activities (e.g., travel to present at a conference, production of educational materials).
  • The ASP also administers the National Science Teaching Association collaboration grants.

American Astronomical Society Small Grants

  • The AAS does not maintain a general small grants program but has specific programs:
  • AAS Small Research Grants: https://aas.org/grants-and-prizes/small-research-grants — up to $5,000 for US researchers. Useful for specific expenses (equipment, travel).
  • AAS Chretien International Research Grant: Up to $20,000 for international collaboration in observational astronomy. Requires US PI.
  • AAS International Travel Grants: For presenting at international conferences.

Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston (ATMoB)

  • URL: https://atmob.org
  • Very small grants ($500-$2,000) for amateur astronomy projects. Useful for covering specific equipment costs at Stage 2.

Sky & Telescope's "Astronomy in Action" Grants

  • Sky & Telescope historically ran small grants for community astronomy projects, though the program has been inconsistent. Monitor their website.

Raspberry Pi Foundation / Adafruit Community Fund

  • If OpenAstro's owned hardware uses Raspberry Pi (as in the Global Meteor Network model), Raspberry Pi Foundation has a community fund for educational and scientific projects using their hardware. URL: https://www.raspberrypi.org/community/
  • Adafruit has an education fund as well.
  • Stage target: Stage 3, when acquiring hardware for owned nodes.

Part 5: Grant Strategy by Stage

Stage 1 (Now — Pipeline + Paper)

Goals: Keep costs low. Establish credibility for future grant applications.

Immediate actions: 1. SciStarter listing (free, required for some future grant applications as evidence of public engagement). 2. arXiv preprint when pipeline produces first result. 3. Open source the pipeline on GitHub under an MIT or Apache 2.0 license. This is required by Sloan, Moore, and most science funders for software grants.

Realistic funding at Stage 1: - Self-funded or small institutional support (if affiliated with a university, use whatever computing/travel funds exist). - AAS Small Research Grant ($5,000) — can cover travel to SAS or AAS to present the methods paper. - AWS Research Credits or Google for Nonprofits (cloud compute for pipeline development). These are free and non-competitive. Apply immediately. - AWS Research Credits: https://aws.amazon.com/research-credits/ - Google Cloud for Nonprofits: https://cloud.google.com/nonprofit - Microsoft Azure for Research: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/academic-program/microsoft-azure-for-research/

First grant application to prepare (submit at Stage 1/2 boundary): - Sloan Scientific Software grant — the pipeline is the product. Write the concept paper during Stage 1 so it is ready when the preprint is available.

Stage 2 (Network Live)

Goals: Secure $50K-$200K to fund operating costs, hardware for owned nodes, and postdoc or student support.

Primary targets: 1. NSF ATI — submit when the network has 20+ active sites and one published result. The PI must be a faculty collaborator. 2. Heising-Simons — submit a letter of inquiry once there is a published paper. 3. NASA ROSES Citizen Science element — requires NASA-affiliated partner. Begin building this relationship during Stage 1 by cold-emailing researchers at GSFC, JPL, or university NASA-funded groups who work on TESS follow-up or transient science. 4. Sloan Scientific Software — if the pipeline is genuinely novel and has external users beyond OpenAstro, this becomes feasible.

Pro-Am partnership as a funding path: - The most common path for projects like OpenAstro is as a sub-award within a professional astronomer's NSF or NASA grant. A professional astronomer who needs the kind of ground-based follow-up OpenAstro provides can include a sub-award in their grant application to fund OpenAstro operations. This is a lower bar than a standalone grant and does not require OpenAstro to have its own institutional affiliation. - Target: Identify 3-5 faculty researchers at US institutions who work on TESS follow-up, transient science, or asteroid characterization. Propose a collaboration where they include OpenAstro as a sub-award in their next grant cycle.

Stage 3 (Owned Hardware)

Goals: $200K-$1M to deploy 5-10 owned nodes and sustain operations.

Primary targets: 1. NSF AAG — now the right program if the network is producing peer-reviewed science regularly. 2. NASA ADAP — if OpenAstro is processing TESS or other NASA mission data. 3. Heising-Simons Astronomy Program — direct application as an established project. 4. Philanthropic donors — by Stage 3, the project should have enough visibility to attract individual donors. A $50K-$200K donation from a wealthy amateur astronomer (the kind who owns private observatories and participates in pro-am projects) is realistic if OpenAstro has a strong track record.

Part 6: Making OpenAstro Grant-Eligible

Several structural decisions affect grant eligibility:

501(c)(3) or Fiscal Sponsorship

NSF and most foundations cannot grant to individuals — they require a legal entity. Options:

Incorporate as a nonprofit (501(c)(3)) - Cost: ~$500-$1,000 in filing fees, 3-6 months processing time. - Pros: Full organizational control, can receive all types of grants and donations, tax-deductible donations. - Cons: Overhead (IRS filings, governance requirements, board). - When to do this: At Stage 2, when there is enough activity to justify the administrative overhead.

Fiscal sponsorship - A fiscal sponsor is an existing 501(c)(3) that agrees to receive grants and donations on behalf of a project, in exchange for an administrative fee (~5-10%). - Examples: NumFOCUS (https://numfocus.org) for scientific software projects, Open Collective (https://opencollective.com) for open source projects, Experiment.com for science projects. - NumFOCUS is the most relevant: they sponsor astropy, NumPy, Matplotlib, and other scientific computing projects. An OpenAstro application to be a NumFOCUS Affiliated Project or Sponsored Project is realistic once the pipeline is open source and has a user base. - URL: https://numfocus.org/projects-overview - When to pursue: Stage 1 completion, when the pipeline is public.

University partnership (sub-award) - Working through a university PI means the university handles grant administration. This is the lowest-friction path at Stage 1-2 and the most common arrangement for projects in OpenAstro's position. - Limitation: The university takes an overhead rate (usually 50-60% of direct costs for federally-funded grants). For a $200K grant, ~$100K goes to overhead. This is standard and expected.

Open Data Policy

All major funders (NSF, NASA, Sloan, Moore) require funded research to have a data management plan with open data provisions. OpenAstro should adopt an open data policy before any grant application: - Data is publicly available after a 12-month embargo. - Data is archived in a permanent repository (Zenodo, NASA ADS, or VizieR). - Data is formatted in community-standard formats (FITS for images, CSV for light curves with standard headers). - Data is licensed CC-BY 4.0.

This policy should be documented publicly (one page on the website) before grant applications are submitted.

Publications Record

Grant reviewers look for: 1. A peer-reviewed publication (not just arXiv) demonstrating the pipeline works. 2. Evidence of external impact (citations, external users, community engagement). 3. A realistic plan for using the grant funds.

The Stage 1 paper is therefore not just a scientific milestone — it is the primary document enabling fundraising.

Part 7: In-Kind and Non-Cash Resources

Not all resources require grants. The following are available with low or no cost:

Cloud compute: AWS, Google, Microsoft all offer research credit programs. Apply to all three immediately. Combined, these can provide $10K-$50K of compute per year.

Telescope time donations: University teaching observatories with underused capacity may donate telescope time in exchange for co-authorship. This is informal and relationship-dependent but completely realistic. Several universities run their teaching scopes for <50% of available nights — the marginal cost of adding OpenAstro campaigns is near zero.

Data archives: AAVSO, ETD, MPC, and AstroBin provide free data access. These are the Stage 1 data sources and require no funding.

Software infrastructure: GitHub (free for public repos), Zenodo (free for data archiving up to 50GB), NASA ADS (free indexing), arXiv (free preprint server), SciStarter (free listing).

Domain and hosting: A domain costs ~$15/year. A static site on GitHub Pages or Netlify is free. A VPS for the pipeline server is $20-$50/month (Hetzner, Linode/Akamai). Total: <$100/month until Stage 2 scaling.

Part 8: Grant Writing Resources

For writing the first formal grant applications:

  • NSF Grant Proposal Guide: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pappg/
  • Pivot (grant database): https://pivot.proquest.com — free through most universities. Searches all grant opportunities by keyword.
  • Grants.gov: https://www.grants.gov — all federal grants. Set up alerts for "astronomy," "citizen science," and "distributed observatory."
  • TRAM (The Research Administrator's Manual): Useful for understanding indirect costs and university grant administration.
  • AAS Writing Grants guide: https://aas.org/career/career-articles/writing-grants — short guide written for astronomers new to grant writing.

The strongest early grant applications will: 1. Lead with the scientific problem that requires a distributed network (not the technology). 2. Show that the team has already demonstrated the core capability (the Stage 1 paper). 3. Have a realistic budget with line-item justifications. 4. Demonstrate community engagement (SciStarter listing, forum presence, active observers). 5. Show a path to sustainability beyond the grant period.