NASA Expands Exploration Data Gap Catalog to Guide Commercial Lunar Payloads

NASA is expanding its catalog of exploration data gaps to guide commercial spacecraft developers and upcoming surface missions, detailing the work of Langley Research Center aerospace engineer Richard Spolzino. Based in Hampton, Virginia, Spolzino works within Moon Base's mission architecture and systems interoperability effort, cataloging technical unknowns for lunar operations.

Under direction from NASA leadership, companies pitching new space instruments must now demonstrate how their proposals directly correspond to a documented data gap. The policy is intended to ensure that external instrument proposals align with specific technical questions that agency missions have yet to solve.

Mapping Technical Unknowns

Spolzino frames data gaps as knowledge gaps that outline what engineers and scientists still need to learn before and during missions. “You can think of it as synonymous with a knowledge gap. It’s a way of documenting the thing we don’t know,” he said. Identifying those missing elements, he explained, gives industry partners a clear view of where their proposed payloads can make the most meaningful impact.

His team began with roughly 25 published gaps last year and remains on pace to expand the catalog to 60 by the close of the year.

Commercial Mission Applications

The cataloging process has already shaped flight planning for commercial partners. Spolzino's team assisted lunar lander company Voyager, formerly known as Astrobotic, with prioritizing data transmissions for its upcoming Griffin-1 lunar landing mission.

Spolzino studied physics at Santa Clara University before completing a graduate program at the University of Houston that combined aerospace engineering and space architecture. He noted that his focus on systems interoperability grew out of an interest in broad mission impact.

“I want to be able to look at a rocket launch and say, ‘I touched a piece of this,’” Spolzino said. He added that preserving quality across missions requires steady institutional discipline: “Keeping the kind of reputation NASA has takes constant, deliberate work. Everyone’s genuinely trying to pull in the right direction, but it’s not automatic.”