NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge 2025

This year, I had the pleasure of participating in NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge that took place from October 3 to October 5, as a member of a mostly NASA-lead team that authored one of the featured challenges in the International Space Apps Challenge. The challenge had the following title:

“From EarthData to Action: Cloud Computing with Earth Observation Data for Predicting Cleaner, Safer Skies.” See the challenge description on the official hackathon website.

My participation in the Space Apps Challenge concluded with my role as a judge in the Global Judging stage on Monday November 10.

The Challenge was inspired by NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) mission, which is transforming how air quality is monitored and forecast across North America. TEMPO can produce Near Real-Time (NRT) measurements of key atmospheric gases and aerosols from a geostationary orbit, spanning from the Yucatán Peninsula to northern Canada, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific (see Figure 1). TEMPO-generated data supports scientific research, environmental policy, and public health applications by offering unprecedented high spatial and temporal resolution insights into the composition of the lower atmosphere.

Our team developed the Challenge “From EarthData to Action” to engage participants of the hackathon in applying TEMPO data to real-world decision-making. The goal was to encourage the creation of a web-based application, AI/ML techniques, integrating Near Real-Time (NRT) TEMPO observations with ground-based air quality measurements and weather data to:

• Forecast local and regional near real time air quality conditions,
• Alert users about poor air quality events, and
• Demonstrate the potential of cloud computing for scalable, efficient access to NASA Earth science data.

The 2025 Space Apps Challenge saw record participation, with over 11,000 projects submitted globally across 19 challenges. Our TEMPO challenge alone attracted more than 400 project submissions, underscoring global interest in leveraging open Earth science data to address environmental and public health concerns.

Supporting Global Innovation

Throughout the Global Hackathon weekend, the team worked directly with participants worldwide, helping them access, interpret, and use NASA data effectively. In addition to supporting teams working on our Challenge, we assisted others by sharing our expertise in cloud-based data access, Earth observation formats, and NASA’s open data infrastructure.

Accessing near Real-Time TEMPO Level-2 data presented a unique technical challenge for most participants. These swath-based data are not always intuitive for new users, and identifying relevant subsets within large, remote files requires familiarity with NASA’s data, and services. Our team provided guidance on how to efficiently access and process these datasets in the cloud.

OPeNDAP’s Contributions to Cloud-Optimized Earth Data

A key part of OPeNDAP’s ongoing collaboration with NASA involves simplifying and improving access to complex Earth observation datasets. One major advancement is the generation of DMR++ metadata references for cloud-hosted TEMPO data (similar to other data collections), which enable cloud-based performant and selective data access, in an interoperable way.

These DMR++ products play a vital role in making TEMPO data easier to use — allowing users and applications to efficiently retrieve only the necessary subsets of data without downloading large files. This cloud-based capability is essential for large-scale data analysis and is central to NASA’s vision of making its Earth science data more accessible and usable.

For more on DMR++, you can read its (technical) documentation here.

Looking Ahead

Participating in the Space Apps Challenge as a Challenge author and data access mentor was both rewarding and impactful. It provided a unique opportunity to engage directly with the global developer and science communities, while showcasing how OPeNDAP’s technologies enable scalable, cloud-based use of NASA’s Earth observation data.

Through continued collaboration, innovation, and open data initiatives, we aim to further bridge the gap between Earth observation and actionable insights — supporting a future of cleaner, safer skies and a more informed, resilient planet.

By Miguel Angel Jimenez-Urias, PhD.

Computational Oceanographer | Scientific Community Director, OPeNDAP Inc