From the moon landing to the James Webb Space Telescope and many other scientific missions, software is critical for the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Sharing information has also been in the DNA of the space agency from the beginning. As a result, NASA also contributes to and releases open-source software and open data. In a keynote at FOSDEM 2023, Science Data Officer Steve Crawford talked about NASA and open-source software, including the challenges NASA has faced in using open source and the agency’s recent initiatives to lower barriers.

Software has always been a big part of NASA’s work. Who hasn’t seen the photo of computer scientist Margaret Hamilton next to a hard-copy stack of the Apollo software she and her team at MIT produced? The stack of code is as tall as she is. In 2016, the original Apollo 11 Guidance Computer source code for the command and lunar modules was published on GitHub in the public domain. You can even compile the code and run it in a simulator.

Sharing its discoveries has also always been a part of NASA’s heritage, Crawford emphasized. He showed section 203(a) of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which created NASA. It states that the agency shall “provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof”.

Read more about NASA Open Source initiatives in the article here.