Montana State researchers receive $3 million grant from NASA

BOZEMAN - Montana State University has received a $3 million NASA grant to lead a nationwide project studying wildfire smoke and other pollutants using high-altitude balloons and drones.

The project will bring together 40 undergraduate teams from community colleges and universities across the country to collect air quality measurements using equipment developed in MSU's Balloon Outreach, Research, Exploration and Landscape Imaging System lab, known as BOREALIS.

The Aerial Science, Collaboration, and Education Network for Discovery, or ASCEND, project will measure how pollutants are distributed at different heights above the ground, said Michael Walach, an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Technology Education, principal investigator of the ASCEND project and the lab's flight director.

This research is particularly relevant to Montana, where wildfire smoke is an increasingly important air quality issue, Walach said. Intense wildfires can push smoke high into the atmosphere and, in extreme cases, into the stratosphere, where it can remain much longer because the processes that normally remove smoke particles are less effective. Measuring smoke at different heights will help researchers understand both the pollution near communities and smoke that persists higher in the atmosphere.

Sensors carried by balloons will collect measurements from Earth's surface to approximately 100,000 feet, helping researchers determine how high smoke travels and how its concentration changes with altitude. Drones will collect measurements close to the ground and up to 400 feet to help researchers understand how local conditions affect the movement of pollutants in the air people breathe.

The project will support NASA's Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution mission, known as TEMPO, which uses a satellite-based instrument to monitor air pollution over North America. The balloon and drone measurements will provide additional information about how pollutants are distributed between the ground and higher layers of the atmosphere.

MSU's BOREALIS lab will lead the project. Students in the lab designed the drones, electronics and data-collection systems that the participating teams will use. The MSU team will also collect measurements and support teams across the country.

"All the teams in this project are going to be using the hardware that was built here in Montana," Walach said. "So not just American-made, but Bozeman-made, Montana-made. That's something for MSU to be really proud of."

Eight partner institutions will serve as regional team leaders, called "pod leads": Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Plymouth State University, the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, the University of Idaho, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Valparaiso University, the University of Kentucky and the University of Montana.

These university teams will train at MSU before returning to their institutions to train and mentor approximately five participating teams each.

Community colleges and universities will be invited to submit proposals to participate in the project beginning January 2027. Forty student teams will be selected and trained that year. Teams do not need prior experience with balloons, drones or air quality research to participate.

In 2028, the teams will collect measurements during four coordinated campaigns, one in each season. Each campaign will take place during the same week across participating locations, allowing researchers to bring together measurements from across the country. Teams will upload their findings to a shared website being developed for the project.

Two NASA subject matter experts, one from Goddard Space Flight Center and one from Langley Research Center, will also support the project, providing expertise in aerosols, pollution and atmospheric science.

For Walach, the opportunity to reach students across the country is especially exciting.

"It's going to have more reach than anything I've ever done before," he said. "I'm just excited to see what kind of impact we actually have."

BOREALIS is part of the Montana Space Grant Consortium, which supports education and hands-on research opportunities in NASA-related fields across the state. The lab gives MSU undergraduates from a variety of majors opportunities to gain aerospace experience in Montana. Students design electronics, write software and use 3D printing to develop systems for balloon and drone experiments.

"This project is a great example of what research at Montana State can accomplish: taking on a challenge that matters deeply to Montanans, developing innovative solutions here in Bozeman, and then extending that work across the country," said Alison Harmon, MSU's vice president for research and economic development. "It is especially exciting that our students helped design and build the technology that will make this research possible, giving them extraordinary hands-on experience while contributing to NASA science and a better understanding of the air we breathe."

For more information on the ASCEND project, visit ascendflight.org.