The mission
behind the work
What if the conservation community turned the tide on the biodiversity crisis, and we truly safeguarded life on Earth? Doing this won’t be possible without NASA’s bird’s-eye view. And for NASA to truly play its part, we need to work together.
To understand and protect the value that life on Earth provides to people’s lives and livelihoods—through research on biodiversity’s role in supporting the entire Earth system and conservation applications that advance actionable tools and insights supporting decision-makers in accelerating impact at scale.
The Virtual Center identifies and pursues opportunities that no one Center, mission, or team could accomplish alone—while leveraging existing NASA investments to accomplish more with existing taxpayer resources.
Our work spans research, modeling, data systems, precursor applications, indexes, tools, and more. Every Virtual Center activity is rooted in real-world end-user needs—and NASA often pursues them in collaboration with those closest to the issue in the lab and on the ground.
For examples of what we do, see our projects.
Serving those who
steward our world
The Virtual Center deliberately serves and collaborates with the following groups through cross-center efforts—with others benefiting as well. Our focus is on those who can act on NASA’s science to accelerate conservation impact.
These groups offer a wide range of familiarity with remote sensing and NASA Earth observation information—from eDNA and ecology experts with no GIS background, to highly sophisticated remote sensing practitioners.
Nearly all will be uninitiated to new NASA sensor outputs—hyperspectral, radar, thermal, lidar—and the biodiversity variables they will enable for the first time from space.
The opportunity before us: to help the biodiversity field shift toward next generation technologies.
How we are built
to work together
The Virtual Center is not just a structural model—it is a cultural one. Designed over 18 months with input from all five NASA centers and NASA Headquarters, it stitches together what works with well-reasoned innovations to unlock the combined potential of NASA’s BDEC community.
| Role | Vetting Ideas | What Gets Funded | Technical Decisions | Activity Budgets | Activity Staffing | Training Choices |
|---|
The default is to seek consensus via organic means. Voting occurs only when organic means reach an impasse—anyone can call for a vote. We use the 0–3 method. An idea advances absent any 0s and with no more than 20% voting 1.
Science in action
The BDEC Virtual Center is actively funding and coordinating cross-center projects that put NASA’s biodiversity capabilities to work. Each project is a living demonstration of what One NASA can accomplish together.
The BDEC Virtual Center is building monthly, gap-filled vegetation index composites at 30-meter resolution using NASA’s Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 (HLS) dataset—replacing and improving upon resources the biodiversity science and conservation community relies on today.
NASA’s HLS dataset already fuses Landsat 8/9 and Sentinel-2 into a 30-meter, near-daily global record dating back to 2015, and recently added nine vegetation indices (NDVI, EVI, and others). But those indices are raw, single-scene snapshots—not gap-filled or composited—limiting their utility for biodiversity monitoring.
The Virtual Center is building monthly, gap-filled HLS vegetation index composites at 30m. These will not only replace resources BDEC stakeholders have come to rely upon, but improve on them—offering a more complete and actionable record for tracking biodiversity change over time.
MODIS—one of the most widely used satellite data sources in biodiversity science—is retiring on a fixed clock. The BDEC Virtual Center’s post-MODIS effort is preparing the academic and conservation communities for this transition before the window closes.
Terra MODIS will stop data collection in February 2027, and Aqua MODIS in September 2027—both satellites are already drifting out of their design orbits. VIIRS is the designated successor, but it doesn’t fully replace MODIS. Too few BDEC stakeholders are ready to use VIIRS information, and some remain unaware of MODIS’ impending expiration.
This is BDEC’s critical initial effort to inform the academic and conservation communities that this shift is on the horizon, and to provide early insights and tools to help give them a soft landing to other data sources. If the insights generated by this community are lost in the near-term, decision-makers, policymakers, and scientists will be without essential information.
New projects emerge through a structured process designed to be lean, end-user-driven, and cross-center. The Engagement Team is the front door for all ideas—and all ideas, including those not advanced, are shared with Program Managers at NASA HQ, who make the final decisions about what gets funded and through what mechanism.
Each idea is evaluated across five criteria. Strategic alignment must reach Level 1. All other criteria must score Level 1 or 2, with at least half at Level 1. A Level 3 score on any criterion stops the idea from advancing.
The community
behind One NASA
The BDEC Virtual Center brings together scientists, applications experts, and program staff from across NASA’s five centers—united by a singular purpose: advancing biodiversity science and conservation at scale.