CEDAR email: Urgent: National Academies Call for Experts – GSFC Capabilities Assessment

[Lynn Harvey]

Dear CEDAR Community,

This is to announce a time-sensitive opportunity for our community to shape an upcoming National Academies study assessing the technical and scientific capabilities at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. This Congressionally mandated review will directly inform recommendations on what capabilities must be preserved and supported to ensure NASA’s long-term success.

The National Academies is seeking suggestions for committee members across areas including instrumentation, modeling, space missions, systems development, infrastructure, and workforce. If our community is not represented, there is a real risk that critical capabilities will be overlooked or undervalued.

Heliophysics—and particularly our ITM community—has been hit hard by the recent changes at Goddard, with widespread relocation of personnel and laboratories. It is essential that the committee conducting this assessment includes experts who understand the full scope, value, and fragility of these capabilities.

The timeline is very short (Friday April 24, 2026), so I strongly encourage members of the CEDAR community to go here <https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/8800415/Assessment-of-Technical-and-Scientific-Capabilities-at-NASA-Goddard-Space-Flight-Center-Call-for-Experts?utm_campaign=40309100-CAST%20Emails&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz---hhfpGHtRRi9yDqiWA77qRUQ3DRZmhqU8niVu28i3yoJ6pyR6o7Dh2uVYekvQi_EJLdIRHV4XGIQJJiF9-TdVLh6xuFP1vkSXW0xjo7TzMk4dCTI&_hsmi=414326971&utm_content=414326971&utm_source=hs_email> now and self-nominate or nominate qualified colleagues. Please consider taking a few minutes to respond. CEDAR community participation on this committee can have lasting impacts.

Best regards,
V. Lynn Harvey
Chair, CEDAR Science Steering Committee (CSSC)

Additional context:
https://aas.org/posts/news/2026/01/congress-passes-fiscal-year-2026-spending-bills-nsf-nasa-and-doe
https://democrats-science.house.gov/imo/media/doc/SST%20Minority%20Staff%20Report%20-%20NASA%20Implementation%20of%20FY26%20PBR%20-%20April%202026.pdf



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V. Lynn Harvey
Senior Research Scientist
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
3665 Discovery Drive
Boulder, CO  80303
tel: 720-232-7461
fax: 303-735-3737
email: lynn.harvey at lasp.colorado.edu<mailto:lynn.harvey at lasp.colorado.edu>


CU Boulder acknowledges that it is located on the traditional territories and ancestral homelands of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ute and many other Native American nations.

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