What is FDL?
The Frontier Development Lab (FDL) applies AI technologies to space science to push the frontiers of research and develop new tools to help solve some of the biggest challenges that humanity faces. These range from the affects of climate change to predicting space weather, from improving disaster response, to identifying meteorites that could hold the key to the history of our universe.
FDL is a public-private partnership with NASA in the USA and ESA in Europe. We work with commercial partners such as NVIDIA, Intel, and Google Cloud, IBM, Lockheed Martin, SpaceResources Luxembourg, KBRWyle, XPrize, Kx, and Miso Technologies who provide expertise and the computing resources necessary for rapid experimentation and iteration in data intensive areas, as well as partners such as the SETI Institute, Satellite Applications Catapult, USC MASCLE, and the University of Oxford.
FDL is hosted by the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California - in partnership with NASA Ames Research Center.
We have established an impressive success rate for research output over accelerated time periods over the time since we launched the Frontier Development Lab. Research papers are regularly accepted to respected journals, presented at scientific conferences (in both AI and space science domains) and have been featured in multiple media outlets.

How does it work?
FDL brings researchers from the cutting-edge of AI and data science, and teams them up with their counterparts from the space sector for an intensive eight-week research sprint, based on a range of challenge areas. The results far exceed what any individual could develop in the same time period, or even in years of individual research.
A key aspect of our success is the careful formation of small interdisciplinary teams focused on tackling specific challenges. Each team is composed of at least two space researchers and two data science or AI researchers, selected by our world-class network of mentors. During the research and development sprints, the teams are supported by mentors and experts from NASA, ESA and our other partners.
FDL has a global presence, in previous years the residential research sprint has been at the SETI Institute/NASA Ames, Mountain View, California, US and the University of Oxford, England, UK.
The support from our partners in the public and private sector allows us to offer PhD and post-doctoral researchers the opportunity to work on real-world problems in an interdisciplinary environment, supported by leading experts, and cutting-edge hardware.
What topics do you focus on?
Over the past three years, FDL’s research teams have worked on challenges under five key mission areas: Planetary Defence, Living with our Star, The Moon for Good, Mission Control for Earth, and Are we Alone?
For the 2019 research sprint we are developing challenge questions that build on previous missions, and also looking at new areas including Climate Toolbox, Mission Support, Astronaut Health and Connecting our Planet.
How do you select the challenges?
In order to ensure that we are tackling questions that have the potential to have a real-world impact, we have developed close links with scientists, researchers, industry and humanitarian organizations. We invite our partners and network to the “Big Think”, where they can share their thoughts on the latest developments in their fields, issues that need attention, as well as network with other members of the community. The Big Think meetings take place at the start of the year in the US and Europe, and provide the initial ideas for challenges, data-sets and resources.
Following the Big Think, we invite key partners and experts to help us distill these ideas into distinct challenge questions for the teams to work on during the research sprint.
How can I get involved with the Frontier Development Lab?
The main way to get involved with Frontier Development Lab is to apply to be a participant and take part in one of our research sprints, but there are plenty of other opportunities to stay in touch and support the program.
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Detailed overview of FDL outputs

OVERVIEW OF FDL RESEARCH
You can read in more detail about the proceedings of FDL 2016 - 2017 in the Proceedings Document here.
FDL Steering committee
James Parr | FDL Director
Bill Diamond | CEO The SETI Institute
Sara Jennings | FDL Deputy Director
Shyla Spicer | FDL Assistant Producer
Bruce Pittman | NASA Space Portal
Lisa Vestal | NASA Space Portal
Dan Rasky | NASA Space Portal
Victoria Friedensen | NASA HQ
Lika Guhathakurta | NASA HQ / ARC
Alison Lowndes | Nvidia AI relations
Jonathan Knowles | Ideation Director
Graham Mackintosh | Project Manager
Armine Saroian | HR Director SETI Insitute
Debbie Kolyer | Manager SETI Insitute
Jason Kessler | Partnership Director
Chiara Miele | Coordinator
Leo Silverberg | Digital Design
Chaneil James | Community Coordinator
FDL Science Committee
Jessie Dotson | NASA AMES
J.L. Galache | Astronomy Advisor
John Karcz | NASA HQ
Sangram Ganguly | NASA AMES
Nathalie Cabrol | NASA / SETI Insitute
Peter Jenniskens | NASA / SETI Insitute
Michael Busch | SETI Insitute
Phil Metzger | UCF
Eric Dahlstrom | NZSpaceBase
Mark Cheung | Lockheed Martin
Chris Rapley | UCL
Alan O'Neill | Reading University
Daniel Angerhausen | University of Bern
Mark Doherty | ESA
Dietmar Backes | University of Luxembourg
Franck Marchis | SETI Insitute
FDL AI Technical Committee
Alison Lowndes | Nvidia
Ian Goodfellow | Google
Francois Chollet | Google
Greg Renard | XBrain
Chedy Raissi | Inria
Yarin Gal | University of Oxford
Lorien Pratt | Quantellia
Mark Cheung| Lockheed Martin
Naeem Altaf | IBM
Amir Khosrowshahi | Intel
Troy Hernandez | IBM
Atilim Gunes Baydin | University of Oxford
Franck Marchis | SETI Insitute
Siddha Ganju | DeepVision
Nagib Hakim | Intel
Mark Sykes | CTO Kx