NASA’s Astrophysics Cross-Observatory Science Support (ACROSS) Initiative is soliciting applications for its first iteration of the ACROSS Incubators program. ACROSS is a NASA Physics of the Cosmos Program initiative with the goal of providing critical infrastructure and coordination services that enable astronomers to leverage NASA’s fleet alongside ground-based facilities and international observatories in a cohesive, responsive network for groundbreaking TDAMM research. To do so, ACROSS is developing publicly available software tools to facilitate community-wide TDAMM research efforts. These include APIs and Python tools to provide standardized mission observation schedules, target visibility calculators, and coincident observation overlap calculators. These tools are available from the ACROSS website and GitHub page.

The ACROSS Incubators is a year-long funding opportunity to support utilizing ACROSS’s software infrastructure to achieve novel scientific results. Selected applicants will work remotely at their home institutions with the opportunity to visit NASA centers to collaborate with the ACROSS team as needed. They will bring their science use cases or infrastructure needs which can be facilitated by the ACROSS system. They will work alongside the ACROSS development team, composed of astrophysics support scientists and full-stack software developers, to integrate existing tools and develop new tools for their research efforts.

This opportunity is open to graduate students who have advanced to candidacy as well as postdoctoral researchers who have received their degrees within the last five years. As part of this effort, ACROSS expects to support an applicant’s full-time work from Jun 1, 2026 to Aug 1, 2026 (dates pending), as well as approximately 20% FTE work during the remainder of the academic year, contingent on satisfactory performance and the availability of funds.

For more details on the program and how to apply, see the ACROSS Incubators Program Informational PDF. 

Applications will be reviewed beginning April 14; review will continue until positions are filled.