Federal Independent Agencies
Here's a look at documents from federal independent agencies
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National Science Board: Extraordinary Possibility
ARLINGTON, Virginia, Jan. 31 -- The National Science Board issued the following news:
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Extraordinary Possibility
As 2026 begins, the National Science Board (NSB) reflects on remarkable achievements during the past year of unprecedented change. As stewards of a long-term strategic vision for the U.S. science and technology (S&T) enterprise, the Board:
* Celebrated NSF as a keystone of U.S. progress and prosperity on its 75th anniversary: Winning the race for the future with the National Science Foundation.
* Demonstrated quantitatively the economic and security impact of NSF investments
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ARLINGTON, Virginia, Jan. 31 -- The National Science Board issued the following news:
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Extraordinary Possibility
As 2026 begins, the National Science Board (NSB) reflects on remarkable achievements during the past year of unprecedented change. As stewards of a long-term strategic vision for the U.S. science and technology (S&T) enterprise, the Board:
* Celebrated NSF as a keystone of U.S. progress and prosperity on its 75th anniversary: Winning the race for the future with the National Science Foundation.
* Demonstrated quantitatively the economic and security impact of NSF investmentsin data briefs: Winning the Race for the Future and NSF Investments Are Key to U.S. Leadership in AI & Quantum.
* Transformed our Congressionally mandated Science and Engineering Indicators to better inform decision makers by focusing on three topics crucial to U.S. innovation, competitiveness, and national security: Discovery, Talent, and Translation to Impact.
* Published a comprehensive, three-year examination of NSF's Merit Review policy with six recommendations to strengthen NSF transparency and accountability and enhance the delivery of benefits to all Americans, while staying grounded in supporting the most meritorious research.
* Met with national security leaders across the federal S&T enterprise, increasing NSB engagement to better coordinate on how NSF could further contribute to the research and STEM talent development that is vital for achieving U.S. technological dominance to meet and exceed national security mission objectives, including in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and advanced manufacturing.
* Provided timely information and responded to requests from policymakers; engaged with more than 75 decision-makers and stakeholders across multiple sectors on key S&T national priorities, including White House, Congressional, private sector, and academic leaders.
* Provided timely, strategic input to NSF's leadership on agency restructuring in response to Executive Order 14215: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies."
As NSF's statutory governing board, we commend NSF leadership and staff for their hard work, dedication, and resilience. They remain steadfast in their commitment to NSF's mission: advancing the progress of science in service of the American people. In 2025, NSF invested more than $8 billion across all fields of science and engineering, all states and territories, across sectors, and in education at each step of the STEM pathway. Last year demonstrated how NSF-funded research continues to deliver benefits across the nation while keeping U.S. scientific research and innovation on the cutting edge for both economic prosperity and national security.
As we look towards 2026, NSF and NSB are not standing still. We are intentionally experimenting with new, targeted programs, policies, and processes while maintaining the critical science and engineering capacity and world-leading infrastructure that is vital to our economy and national security. For our part, NSB is committed to working with the White House, Congress, and NSF leadership to realize a next generation NSF that will deliver benefits, move faster, partner better, and fully realize the agency's unique value.
In 2026, NSB plans to accelerate the transformation to a Next Generation NSF:
* Identify fundamental research and education needs relevant to national security and economic prosperity and develop a portfolio of NSF activities to address these priorities.
* Engage across federal agencies to strategically partner (e.g. with the Department of Energy's Genesis Mission, and the Department of War's Critical Technology Areas), deploying NSF-funded basic research to solve problems and speed translation to application.
* Advance multisectoral initiatives to develop America's STEM talent, from the skilled technical workforce to PhDs - one of the nation's most strategic investments.
* Pursue creation of a non-profit foundation to make it easier for non-federal entities, including industry and philanthropy, to partner with NSF and make federal dollars go further.
* Capitalize on Merit Review reforms to build a strategic, world-leading research portfolio that leverages the perspectives and expertise of people across all sectors.
* Strengthen our partnership with NSF leadership, working together to ensure agency operational readiness for the changed landscape of federal, national, and global S&T.
* Grow NSF's capacity to help realize a Golden Age of American Innovation and demonstrate a transformative approach that results in national and societal outcomes from S&T research.
The future will not be shaped by science alone, but it cannot be shaped without it. At this pivotal moment, the United States must act with urgency, invest with purpose, and collaborate across boundaries. No one sector, agency, or organization can do this alone. Now is the time for us all to work together to transform our S&T enterprise to meet the 21st century world.
The National Science Board extends its deep appreciation to the researchers, students, educators, innovators, policymakers, and public servants whose work sustains our nation's scientific enterprise. Their dedication reminds us that a future of extraordinary possibility is not guaranteed; it is built through the decisions we make, the partnerships we forge, and the curiosity and courage we choose to nurture. Together, we can bring about the next era of scientific discovery, opportunity, and U.S. leadership.
Learn more about the National Science Board (https://www.nsf.gov/nsb/about).
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Original text here: https://www.nsf.gov/nsb/updates/extraordinary-possibility
NASA's Perseverance Rover Completes First AI-Planned Drive on Mars
PASADENA, California, Jan. 31 (TNSres) -- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued the following news:
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NASA's Perseverance Rover Completes First AI-Planned Drive on Mars
The team for the six-wheeled scientist used a vision-capable AI to create a safe route over the Red Planet's surface without the input of human route planners.
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has completed the first drives on another world that were planned by artificial intelligence. Executed on Dec. 8 and 10, and led by the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the demonstration used generative AI to
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PASADENA, California, Jan. 31 (TNSres) -- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued the following news:
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NASA's Perseverance Rover Completes First AI-Planned Drive on Mars
The team for the six-wheeled scientist used a vision-capable AI to create a safe route over the Red Planet's surface without the input of human route planners.
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has completed the first drives on another world that were planned by artificial intelligence. Executed on Dec. 8 and 10, and led by the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the demonstration used generative AI tocreate waypoints for Perseverance, a complex decision-making task typically performed manually by the mission's human rover planners.
"This demonstration shows how far our capabilities have advanced and broadens how we will explore other worlds," said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. "Autonomous technologies like this can help missions to operate more efficiently, respond to challenging terrain, and increase science return as distance from Earth grows. It's a strong example of teams applying new technology carefully and responsibly in real operations."
During the demonstration, the team leveraged a type of generative AI called vision-language models to analyze existing data from JPL's surface mission dataset. The AI used the same imagery and data that human planners rely on to generate waypoints -- fixed locations where the rover takes up a new set of instructions -- so that Perseverance could safely navigate the challenging Martian terrain.
The initiative was led out of JPL's Rover Operations Center (ROC) in collaboration with Anthropic, using the company's Claude AI models.
Progress for Mars, beyond
Mars is on average about 140 million miles (225 million kilometers) away from Earth. This vast distance creates a significant communication lag, making real-time remote operation -- or "joy-sticking" -- of a rover impossible. Instead, for the past 28 years, over several missions, rover routes have been planned and executed by human "drivers," who analyze the terrain and status data to sketch a route using waypoints, which are usually spaced no more than 330 feet (100 meters) apart to avoid any potential hazards. Then they send the plans via NASA's Deep Space Network to the rover, which executes them.
But for Perseverance's drives on the 1,707 and 1,709 Martian days, or sols, of the mission, the team did something different: Generative AI provided the analysis of the high-resolution orbital imagery from the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and terrain-slope data from digital elevation models. After identifying critical terrain features -- bedrock, outcrops, hazardous boulder fields, sand ripples, and the like -- it generated a continuous path complete with waypoints.
To ensure the AI's instructions were fully compatible with the rover's flight software, the engineering team also processed the drive commands through JPL's "digital twin" (virtual replica of the rover), verifying over 500,000 telemetry variables before sending commands to Mars.
On Dec. 8, with generative AI waypoints in its memory, Perseverance drove 689 feet (210 meters). Two days later, it drove 807 feet (246 meters).
"The fundamental elements of generative AI are showing a lot of promise in streamlining the pillars of autonomous navigation for off-planet driving: perception (seeing the rocks and ripples), localization (knowing where we are), and planning and control (deciding and executing the safest path)," said Vandi Verma, a space roboticist at JPL and a member of the Perseverance engineering team. "We are moving towards a day where generative AI and other smart tools will help our surface rovers handle kilometer-scale drives while minimizing operator workload, and flag interesting surface features for our science team by scouring huge volumes of rover images."
"Imagine intelligent systems not only on the ground at Earth, but also in edge applications in our rovers, helicopters, drones, and other surface elements trained with the collective wisdom of our NASA engineers, scientists, and astronauts," said Matt Wallace, manager of JPL's Exploration Systems Office. "That is the game-changing technology we need to establish the infrastructure and systems required for a permanent human presence on the Moon and take the U.S. to Mars and beyond."
More about Perseverance
Managed for NASA by Caltech, JPL is home to the Rover Operations Center (ROC). It also manages operations of the Perseverance rover on behalf of the agency's Science Mission Directorate as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program portfolio.
For more information on the ROC, visit:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/roc/
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Original text here: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-perseverance-rover-completes-first-ai-planned-drive-on-mars/
IDB Modernizes Lending to Accelerate Disaster Response and Boost Impact
WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 -- The Inter-American Development Bank issued the following news release:
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IDB Modernizes Lending to Accelerate Disaster Response and Boost Impact
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a new Unified Investment Lending Policy (UIP) that will allow investment financing to be deployed faster, more easily, and more clearly tied to outcomes.
Under the UIP, the IDB is streamlining lending instruments -- covering loans, grants, and guarantees -- and introducing new modalities that:
* strengthen disaster-risk management and resilience;
* make it easier
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WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 -- The Inter-American Development Bank issued the following news release:
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IDB Modernizes Lending to Accelerate Disaster Response and Boost Impact
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a new Unified Investment Lending Policy (UIP) that will allow investment financing to be deployed faster, more easily, and more clearly tied to outcomes.
Under the UIP, the IDB is streamlining lending instruments -- covering loans, grants, and guarantees -- and introducing new modalities that:
* strengthen disaster-risk management and resilience;
* make it easierto scale up financing for successful development projects; and
* support long-term programs to tackle shared challenges in areas such as regional integration and cross-border infrastructure.
The reform updates previous instrument policies with a simpler, more flexible framework. The policy also expands results-based financing, where disbursements depend on pre-agreed outcomes. Countries will be able to apply this approach to a wider range of projects and scale up operations that have already proven effective.
"This reform gives our borrowing members faster access to financing when they need it most and more flexibility to scale what works," said IDB Group President Ilan Goldfajn. "It will allow us to combine instruments more effectively, work better with partners, and deliver impact at greater scale."
To boost preparedness and speed recovery, the IDB is introducing two new emergency tools:
* Investment Financing with Deferred Drawdown Option: allows countries to secure financing in advance and draw it down immediately after a natural disaster;
* Post-Emergency Financing: provides rapid funding once a disaster has occurred to support recovery and reconstruction.
In parallel, the Bank has also revamped its Conditional Credit Lines for Integrated Projects, making it easier to integrate policy-based loans, investment financing, and technical assistance under a single strategy that can run up to 10 years. A more flexible revolving credit line will also support project preparation and execution.
The UIP aligns the IDB's lending framework with its 2024-2030 Institutional Strategy and brings its practices closer to those of other multilateral development banks.
For more information, visit the IDB's financing offerings page.
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About the IDB
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a member of the IDB Group, is devoted to improving lives across Latin America and the Caribbean. Founded in 1959, the Bank works with the region's public sector to design and enable impactful, innovative solutions for sustainable and inclusive development. Leveraging financing, technical expertise, and knowledge, it promotes growth and well-being in 26 countries.
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Original text here: https://www.iadb.org/en/news/idb-modernizes-lending-accelerate-disaster-response-and-boost-impact
National Air and Space Museum Announces Plans To Celebrate 50 Years
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 -- The Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum issued the following news release on Jan. 29, 2026:
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National Air and Space Museum Announces Plans To Celebrate 50 Years
Five New Galleries Will Open This Summer
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The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum is celebrating 50 years since the building in Washington, D.C., opened to the public and will commemorate this milestone throughout 2026. The museum opened July 1, 1976, as a gift to the nation for the U.S. bicentennial. Five new galleries will open to the public on the museum's 50th anniversary,
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WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 -- The Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum issued the following news release on Jan. 29, 2026:
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National Air and Space Museum Announces Plans To Celebrate 50 Years
Five New Galleries Will Open This Summer
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The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum is celebrating 50 years since the building in Washington, D.C., opened to the public and will commemorate this milestone throughout 2026. The museum opened July 1, 1976, as a gift to the nation for the U.S. bicentennial. Five new galleries will open to the public on the museum's 50th anniversary,July 1, and in time for the nation's 250th anniversary. The remaining two renovated galleries will open in the fall, which will complete the multi-year project. Programming will also take place throughout the year to celebrate 50 years, including a film series, lectures, special merchandise and digital offerings.
Galleries opening July 1:
Flight and the Arts Center
Jay I. Kislak World War II in the Air
U.S. National Science Foundation Discovering Our Universe
RTX Living in the Space Age
Textron How Things Fly
Galleries opening in the fall:
At Home in Space (Oct. 30)
Modern Military Aviation (Veteran's Day, Nov. 11)
Highlights from the renovated galleries include newly displayed artifacts like the Blue Origin New Shepard rocket and the Il-2 Shturmovik and old favorites like the North American P-51D Mustang and the Hubble Space Telescope. The "Textron How Things Fly" exhibition will offer hands-on experiences for younger visitors and the Flight and the Arts Center will open two inaugural exhibitions including the temporary exhibition "The Ascent of Rauschenberg: Reinventing the Art of Flight."
The opening of the five galleries July 1 and the remaining two galleries this fall will mark the completion of the museum's multi-year renovation, which includes redesigning all 20 exhibition spaces, complete refacing of the exterior cladding, replacement of outdated mechanical systems and other repairs and improvements. The first half of the renovated museum opened in October 2022 with eight new or reimagined exhibitions, the Northrop Grumman Planetarium, the museum store and the Mars Cafe. The second phase opened in July 2025 with five new exhibitions. The previously announced schedule of all seven remaining galleries opening July 1 was adjusted due to the impacts of the government shutdown in fall 2025. More information about how the museum is transforming all of its exhibitions and revitalizing the building is available on the museum's website.
The 50th Anniversary Film Series will take place on the evening of the last Monday of every month throughout the year (plus a Feb. 2 screening) at the museum's Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater. Movie highlights will include Sully, Wall-E and Hidden Figures. The museum's popular Exploring Space Lecture Series will take place this spring and will feature a 50th-anniversary theme by highlighting the science and stories behind objects from the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall. AirSpace, the museum's podcast, will release an anniversary-themed limited series taking listeners behind the scenes of key moments in the museum's history. AirSpace is sponsored by Lockheed Martin.
The museum's anniversary plans also include digital initiatives such as "50 for 50: 50 Artifacts from 50 States," which will showcase how every part of the country has played a role in the history of air and space. The project will include a countdown, which will begin in May, of the 50 artifacts leading up to the July 1 anniversary. In addition, the museum will make records for all objects currently on display at both of its locations--the building on the Mall and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia--available online, ensuring that anyone anywhere can access images and information for over 6,000 objects in the national collection.
Additional programming and projects may be added throughout the year. For a full listing and information, visit the museum's website.
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The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., is located at 650 Jefferson Drive S.W. and is open every day except Dec. 25 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Admission is free, but timed-entry passes are required to visit. The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is located in Chantilly, Virginia, near Washington Dulles International Airport and is open every day except Dec. 25 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Admission is free, timed-entry passes are not required, and parking is $15.
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Original text here: https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/national-air-and-space-museum-announces-plans-celebrate-50-years
NASA-ISRO Radar Mission Peers Through Clouds to See Mississippi River Delta
PASADENA, California, Jan. 30 (TNSres) -- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued the following news:
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NASA-ISRO Radar Mission Peers Through Clouds to See Mississippi River Delta
A new image from the NISAR mission shows off the satellite's ability to reveal details of Earth's surfaces. The science team also released new sample data.
A U.S.-Indian Earth satellite's ability to see through clouds, revealing insights and characteristics of our planet's surface, is on display in a colorful, newly released image showing the Mississippi River Delta region in southeastern Louisiana.
Created with
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PASADENA, California, Jan. 30 (TNSres) -- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued the following news:
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NASA-ISRO Radar Mission Peers Through Clouds to See Mississippi River Delta
A new image from the NISAR mission shows off the satellite's ability to reveal details of Earth's surfaces. The science team also released new sample data.
A U.S.-Indian Earth satellite's ability to see through clouds, revealing insights and characteristics of our planet's surface, is on display in a colorful, newly released image showing the Mississippi River Delta region in southeastern Louisiana.
Created withdata collected by the NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite in late fall, the image shows the cities of New Orleans and Baton Rouge, the Mississippi River, Lake Pontchartrain, and a diversity of wetlands, farmland, forests, and communities. It also highlights the key difference between radar, which scans surfaces with microwaves, and technologies that sense visible light: Optical imagery from other instruments taken the same day showed the region largely obscured by clouds.
This image comes as the NISAR project prepares to make thousands of mission data files available for download in late February. The mission also recently released a smaller set of sample files to help data users prepare to utilize the broader dataset.
While the Earth-observing satellite went through checks to verify the health of all its systems after launching in July, the mission's NASA science team -- researchers and data scientists from a range of disciplines spread around the U.S. -- pulled preliminary measurements from its L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) instrument to generate maps such as this one that demonstrate the instrument's capabilities.
Built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the L-band radar employs microwaves that, due to their 9-inch (24-centimeter) wavelength, can pass uninterrupted through clouds and image the surface below clearly.
What's revealed
Captured Nov. 29, the image demonstrates how the L-band SAR can discern what type of land cover -- low-lying vegetation, trees, and human structures -- is present in each area. This capability is vital both for monitoring the gain and loss of forest and wetland ecosystems, as well as for tracking the progress of crops through growing seasons around the world.
The colors seen here represent varying types of cover, which tend to reflect microwaves back to the satellite differently. Portions of New Orleans appear green, a sign that the radar's signals may be scattering from buildings that are oriented at different angles relative to the satellite's orbit. Parts of the city appear magenta where streets that run parallel to the satellite's flight track cause the signals to bounce strongly and brightly off buildings and back to the instrument.
The resolution of the image is fine enough to make clear, right of center, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway -- twin bridges that, at nearly 24 miles (39 kilometers) in length, make up the world's longest continuous bridge over water.
The bright green areas to the west of the Mississippi River, which snakes from Baton Rouge in the upper left to New Orleans in the lower right, are healthy forests. There, tree canopies and other vegetation caused NISAR's microwaves to bounce in many directions before returning to the satellite. Meanwhile, the yellow-and-magenta-speckled hues of Maurepas Swamp, directly west of Lake Pontchartrain and the smaller Lake Maurepas, indicate that the tree populations in that wetland forest ecosystem have thinned.
On either bank of the Mississippi, the image shows parcels of varying shapes, sizes, and cover. Darker areas suggest fallow farm plots, while bright magenta indicates that tall plants, such as crops, may be present.
The data products created with NISAR's L-band measurements will be downloadable at the website of the Alaska Satellite Facility Distributed Active Archive Center. The Fairbanks-based facility stores and distributes NASA's SAR data.
Insights from NISAR can protect communities by providing unique, actionable information to decision-makers in a diverse range of areas, including disaster response, infrastructure monitoring, and agricultural management.
More about NISAR
A joint mission developed by NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), NISAR launched on July 30 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre on India's southeastern coast. Managed by Caltech, JPL leads the U.S. component of the project and provided the satellite's L-band SAR and antenna reflector. ISRO provided NISAR's spacecraft bus and its S-band SAR, which operates at a wavelength of 4 inches (10 centimeters.)
The NISAR satellite is the first to carry two SAR instruments at different wavelengths and will monitor Earth's land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days, collecting data using the spacecraft's giant drum-shaped reflector, which measures 39 feet (12 meters) wide -- the largest radar antenna reflector NASA has ever sent into space.
To learn more about NISAR, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/nisar/
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Original text here: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-isro-radar-mission-peers-through-clouds-to-see-mississippi-river-delta/
NASA Analysis Shows La Nina Limited Sea Level Rise in 2025
PASADENA, California, Jan. 30 (TNSres) -- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued the following news:
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NASA Analysis Shows La Nina Limited Sea Level Rise in 2025
A mild La Nina caused greater rainfall over the Amazon basin, which offset rising sea levels due to record warming of Earth's oceans.
The rise in the global mean sea level slowed in 2025 relative to the year before, an effect largely due to the La Nina conditions that persisted over most of the year. According to a NASA analysis, the average height of the ocean increased last year by 0.03 inches (0.08 centimeters), down from 0.23
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PASADENA, California, Jan. 30 (TNSres) -- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued the following news:
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NASA Analysis Shows La Nina Limited Sea Level Rise in 2025
A mild La Nina caused greater rainfall over the Amazon basin, which offset rising sea levels due to record warming of Earth's oceans.
The rise in the global mean sea level slowed in 2025 relative to the year before, an effect largely due to the La Nina conditions that persisted over most of the year. According to a NASA analysis, the average height of the ocean increased last year by 0.03 inches (0.08 centimeters), down from 0.23inches (0.59 centimeters) in 2024.
The 2025 figure also fell below the long-term expected rate of 0.17 inches (0.44 centimeters) per year based on the rate of rise since the early 1990s. Though sea levels have increasingly trended upward in that period, years during which the rise in the average height was less usually have occurred during La Ninas -- the part of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation cycle that cools the eastern Pacific Ocean, often leading to heavy rainfall over the equatorial portions of South America.
The current La Nina has been relatively mild. Even so, the extra precipitation it has poured on the Amazon River basin contributed to an overall shift of water from oceans to land. This effect tends to temporarily lower sea levels, offsetting the rise caused by melting glaciers and ice sheets and warming of the oceans, which raises sea levels through the expansion of water when the temperature increases. The net result in 2025 was a lower-than-average sea level rise.
"The weather gives us a wild ride, and what we saw with sea level rise last year is part of that ride," said Josh Willis, a sea level researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "But that cycle is short-lived. The extra water in the Amazon is going to reach the oceans in less than a year, and rapid rise will soon return."
Combined effects
To calculate the global mean sea level in 2025, scientists averaged data across space and time from Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, the current official reference satellite for sea level measurements and one of a line of missions developed by NASA and its U.S. and European partners to track the height of about 90% of Earth's oceans every 10 days.
Then, to better understand the factors that contributed to the rise last year, the researchers looked at measurements from other sources. Among them was the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO), a twin-satellite mission launched by NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences that tracks the movement of water (liquid and frozen) by measuring changes in Earth's gravity over land and ice masses.
The GRACE data indicated that even as ice loss from glaciers and ice sheets continued a long-term trend of water moving from land to oceans, an outsize amount of water moved in the opposite direction in 2025: The heavier-than-normal rainfall due to La Nina shifted water from the oceans to the Amazon basin.
Meanwhile, data from Argo, an international program that uses thousands of seaborne probes to measure ocean temperatures and salinity, showed record warming of the oceans in 2025.
The combined effect of the two factors -- one tending to lower sea levels and the other tending to increase them -- resulted in an average rise in sea level in 2025 that was less than the average rate based on the long-term data record.
Actionable, accurate, consistent
The continuous series of ocean-observing satellites started with TOPEX/Poseidon, which launched in 1992. Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, launched in 2020 and took over in 2022 from its predecessor, Jason-3, which is still in orbit and celebrated its 10th launch anniversary on Jan. 17.
In coming months, Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich will pass the baton to its twin, Sentinel-6B, which launched in November. Sentinel-6B is expected to continue ocean measurements for at least five years.
Over more than three decades, the satellites have offered actionable, accurate, and consistent measurements at both local and global scales. These measurements have formed the basis for U.S. flood predictions, which are crucial for safeguarding coastal infrastructure and communities.
The dataset indicates that the average global sea level has gone up by 4 inches (10 centimeters) since 1993. While it's not uncommon to see short-term ups and downs, the overall trend shows that the rate of annual sea level rise has more than doubled.
"As seas continue to rise globally, satellite monitoring empowers communities worldwide to anticipate risks and build resilience," said Nadya Shiffer, head of physical oceanography programs at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Learn more about sea level:
https://sealevel.nasa.gov/
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Original text here: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-analysis-shows-la-nina-limited-sea-level-rise-in-2025/
EXIM Powers American Nuclear Exports to Poland, Supporting U.S. Jobs and Energy Dominance
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 -- The Export-Import Bank of the U.S. issued the following news release:
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EXIM Powers American Nuclear Exports to Poland, Supporting U.S. Jobs and Energy Dominance
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Washington, D.C. - On January 29, 2026, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) signed a credit agreement with Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe (PEJ) at EXIM headquarters, marking a major step forward in developing Poland's first nuclear power plant in Lubiatowo-Kopalino with American technology and expertise.
"This agreement demonstrates EXIM's commitment to unleashing U.S. energy molecules and
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WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 -- The Export-Import Bank of the U.S. issued the following news release:
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EXIM Powers American Nuclear Exports to Poland, Supporting U.S. Jobs and Energy Dominance
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Washington, D.C. - On January 29, 2026, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) signed a credit agreement with Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe (PEJ) at EXIM headquarters, marking a major step forward in developing Poland's first nuclear power plant in Lubiatowo-Kopalino with American technology and expertise.
"This agreement demonstrates EXIM's commitment to unleashing U.S. energy molecules andtechnologies to every corner of the globe," said Acting First Vice President and Vice Chairman Jim Burrows. "By financing U.S. technical expertise for Poland's nuclear development, we're supporting American jobs and proving that American innovation leads in the industries of the future."
"EXIM's financing marks an important step in advancing Poland's nuclear energy program with proven U.S. technology and expertise," said Ahmet Tokpinar, General Manager of Bechtel's Nuclear Power business. "Bechtel is honored to support Poland's first nuclear project and looks forward to working closely with PEJ to advance a safe, reliable facility that strengthens Poland's long-term energy security."
"Today's agreement is an important first step in providing Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe with financing to deliver the Lubiatowo-Kopalino AP1000(r) project," said Elias Gedeon, Senior Vice President of APX Commercial Contracts Operations, Westinghouse. "This initial financing will allow the Westinghouse Bechtel Consortium to provide critical engineering expertise, which will support both American and Polish jobs for the construction and operation of the plant."
"We are consistently moving from letters of intent to first agreements. The agreement we signed with US Exim is another example demonstrating the credibility of the Polish nuclear project. The formal inclusion of the US export credit agency in the project also opens the way for us to sign further financing agreements with international institutions," said Marek Woszczyk, President of the Management Board of Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe.
The agreement establishes a direct-loan financing facility under EXIM's Engineering Multiplier Program. The financing supports the export of advanced technical services provided by Bechtel Corporation and Westinghouse, as the borrower PEJ advances toward a final investment decision. These services will provide the critical design, sophisticated engineering, and rigorous analytical groundwork for one of Poland's largest energy investments.
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Original text here: https://www.exim.gov/news/exim-powers-american-nuclear-exports-poland-supporting-jobs-and-energy-dominance
