Solar and Planetary Research Grants (SPG)

The Solar and Planetary Research Grants (SPG) Program provides individual investigator and collaborative research grants for observational, theoretical, laboratory, and archival data studies in the science of our solar system and extrasolar planetary systems. Proposals for projects and tools that enable and enhance research in those areas may also be submitted. 

Proposals addressing the astronomy and astrophysics of stars, our galaxy, external galaxies, and cosmology will be handled under a companion NSF solicitation, NSF 16-574, Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Grants (AAG), not under the SPG Program. Proposals that address planet formation within circumstellar disks are appropriate for this SPG Program; proposals that address star formation are better directed to the AAG Program and will not be considered by the SPG Program. Proposals submitted to one of these two programs, and deemed more appropriate for the other program, will be routed to the other program and considered during the next proposal submission season for that program. Potential proposers are cautioned that this could delay a proposal considered more appropriate to the AAG Program for up to a year. 

Proposals that are solely or predominantly for the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of space-based data from NASA-supported missions will be returned without review.