The 2027 KISS Study Program call is now open. Proposal concepts due Oct 30.
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Public Lectures

Talks from experts in the KISS community that open up the future of space exploration, science, and technology to everyone.

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  • Mars through the Ages
    Planetary

    Mars through the Ages

    Mars has been a large focus in US planetary exploration and, more recently, of international space agencies. Space missions (with rovers, landers, and orbiters) have increased our understanding of ancient and present Mars, and whether Mars had or has conditions that would allow life to emerge and persist. Dr. Bonnie Teece will first review Martian geochemistry and the organic molecules found on its surface, detailing the preservation of ancient (billions of years old) organic molecules and whether they could be preserved today. Dr. Brandi Carrier will then review Mars missions and discuss the samples currently being collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover. She will also highlight future mission concepts and plans for Mars astrobiology.

    Registration required
  • Building a Tiny Open-Source Space Program: From ChipSats to Autonomous Swarms

    Building a Tiny Open-Source Space Program: From ChipSats to Autonomous Swarms

    The aerospace industry has experienced a dramatic shift over the last decade: Flying a spacecraft has gone from something only government agencies and large corporations could afford to something universities and small startups can accomplish on a shoestring budget. This talk is about pushing these limits – building spacecraft that are dramatically smaller, simpler, and cheaper – and taking advantage of computation, networking, and autonomy to accomplish exciting new science and exploration missions, while also bringing spaceflight within reach of more people. Recent missions that will be highlighted include KickSat-2, which deployed the four-gram Sprite – the world’s smallest spacecraft; V-R3x, which demonstrated mesh networking between a group of CubeSats; and PY4, which demonstrated low-cost attitude control, formation flying, and radio-navigation capabilities on a swarm of two-kilogram satellites. Nearly all of the hardware and software created for these missions is readily available on the internet to be studied, copied, and reimagined by others.

    Registration required
  • Revolutionizing Astrophysics: How Space and Ground Telescopes Can Work Together

    Revolutionizing Astrophysics: How Space and Ground Telescopes Can Work Together

    Hybrid observatories, combining space assets and ground-based telescopes, can enable extraordinary advances in capabilities and startling scientific discoveries. Orbiting laser guide stars in high Earth orbit can remain passively within arcseconds of a target area for hours at a time, enabling diffraction-limited adaptive optics imaging at visible wavelengths where the sky is darkest. A test at Keck with the orbiting LCRD satellite has recently demonstrated this capability. With a 30 m telescope, angular resolution of a few milliarcsec is feasible. With point source observing speed scaling as D^4, it would be 20,000x faster than Hubble and 1000 x faster than HWO. Such a guide star working with the DKIST could obtain the first sharp images of the solar corona, with a resolution of 25 km. An orbiting standard light source could improve absolute and color photometric accuracy to better than 1%, with impact on high redshift photometric distance scales, dark energy measurements, and on exoplanet models. An orbiting mm wave antenna working with the Event Horizon Telescope could measure the details of photon rings and hence the spins of black holes. Most extreme, a 30 m class telescope with an orbiting 100 m diameter starshade could image exoplanets directly, if it could be built, with 5x the angular resolution of HWO and 1000 x the observing speed. Except for the starshade, all of these could be built as CubeSat or Explorer-class missions.

    Registration required
  • The Continuing Legacy of Galileo at 30

    The Continuing Legacy of Galileo at 30

    The Continuing Legacy of Galileo at 30 is a public panel event honoring the enduring legacy of NASA’s Galileo mission to Jupiter. Sponsored by JPL and the Caltech Keck Institute for Space Studies, it will take place thirty years and one day after Galileo’s historic orbit insertion. The panel will feature leading scientists whose discoveries with Galileo data revolutionized our understanding of Jupiter and its moons, as well as those leading the missions of the future that will stand on the shoulders of Galileo’s success.

    Registration required
  • Unseen but Measured Carbon-I’s Global Mapping of Trace Gases

    Unseen but Measured Carbon-I’s Global Mapping of Trace Gases

    Over its planned three-year mission, Carbon-I would create the first global maps of CH₄, CO₂, and CO at sub-kilometer scales, revealing both natural and human-driven emission processes and providing the observational foundation needed to close critical carbon-budget gaps. This talk will outline the mission concepts, how the team got there and paths forward.

    Registration required
  • What Makes a Model a Digital Twin? An Atmospheric Science-based Perspective
    Planetary

    What Makes a Model a Digital Twin? An Atmospheric Science-based Perspective

    This presentation explores the evolution of digital twins from traditional modeling approaches. While models have long served as the backbone of knowledge representation and scenario development, digital twins have emerged as notable tools in the recent Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) era. Though conceptualized over three decades ago, the recent popularization of digital twins into prominence comes with hundreds of applications, accompanied by numerous definitions.

    Registration required
  • Sample Return Missions from Small Bodies – Hayabusa, Hayabusa2, and Beyond

    Sample Return Missions from Small Bodies – Hayabusa, Hayabusa2, and Beyond

    Small bodies such as asteroids and comets are believed to preserve records of the origin and early evolution of the Solar System. To demonstrate their significance, JAXA has conducted two asteroid sample return missions: the Hayabusa mission, which returned samples from the S-type asteroid Itokawa in 2010, and Hayabusa2, which delivered samples from the C-type asteroid Ryugu in 2020. In this talk, Shogo Tachibana will present the findings from these samples, compare them with those from the B-type asteroid Bennu brought back by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, and discuss the achievements of small-body sample return missions. He will also share expectations for future sample return missions.

    Registration required
  • Setting Sail to Ocean Worlds: The Science of the Europa Clipper Mission

    Setting Sail to Ocean Worlds: The Science of the Europa Clipper Mission

    The Europa Clipper mission that launched in October 2024 promises to revolutionize our understanding of one of the most intriguing moons in the solar system: Jupiter's icy satellite Europa. Dr. Robert Pappalardo, a senior research scientist and fellow at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and a leading expert on Europa, will deliver a guest lecture on the scientific objectives of this groundbreaking mission. The spacecraft is designed to conduct detailed reconnaissance of Europa's ice shell, subsurface ocean, surface and atmospheric composition, and geological activity. Using a suite of sophisticated instruments, Europa Clipper will monitor potential plumes of water vapor and provide information needed to assess Europa’s habitability, addressing fundamental questions about the moon's potential to harbor life.

    Registration required

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Workshops

KISS convenes world leading experts from Caltech, JPL, and the wider space community to conduct in-depth technical studies in focussed areas of space science and technology.

Workshops

Symposia

Focused gatherings that showcase and explore emerging topics in space science and technology.

Symposia

Short Courses

Introductory lecture series on topics related to KISS studies, open to the wider community.

Short Courses

Special Events

KISS hosts a variety of events, together with our partners, for our community to connect, learn, and engage.

Special Events