Culture

NASA's Mission to Bring Data From Space to the Developing World

The agency’s satellites have a unique vantage point that can help countries prepare for climate change.
A motorcyclist rides through a road inundated by rainwater in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where NASA and USAID are using satellite data to help the densely populated country better prepare for extreme floods.Reuters/Andrew Biraj

When we think of NASA, we think of deep-space exploration. We expect the agency to be working on questions like what life would be like on Mars or how to build a city on the moon. But researchers—and astronauts—have been on another kind of mission: to bring space down to Earth and to the developing world.

In 2003, the agency teamed up with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to form SERVIR, an initiative to use data gathered in space to help developing countries combat problems arising from climate change. Its name comes from the Spanish word meaning “to serve.”