The Florida Space Institute (FSI) is a research institute of the State University System of Florida and the University of Central Florida located in Orlando, Florida, United States.^[1]

FSI is currently led by Interim Director Dr. Julie Brisset.^[2]

In 1981, NASA's Space Transportation System commenced spaceflight operations utilizing the John F. Kennedy Space Center as a launch point for equatorial orbit and as a primary landing site for return to Earth. Concurrent with NASA's return to manned spaceflight operations for the first time since 1975, the State of Florida proposed establishment of a research institute on Florida's Space Coast that would be focused on bringing scientific, academic, and technological research activities from the space sector to Florida. Leading this effort was an engineering faculty member of the University of Central Florida (UCF), Dr. Ron Phillips, who worked with the State of Florida to create what became known as the Space Education and Research Center (SERC) in 1990. Established and located adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Brevard County, Florida, SERC's initial focus was on civilian and commercial space activities and at the time did not include the military space activities of the U.S. Department of Defense conducted adjacent to KSC at the then-Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. In 1996, SERC was renamed the Florida Space Institute (FSI) as a Type-1 institute under the State University System of Florida.^[3]

In 2012, FSI was rechartered to ostensibly allow it a broader portfolio of research and education activities and to simplify its organizational and fiscal governance under UCF versus the broader State University System. It also moved FSI from the Kennedy Space Center to the Central Florida Research Park in Orange County, Florida, south of and immediately adjacent to the UCF main campus. An unintended consequence of this rechartering was that it downgraded FSI's status from that of a State of Florida Institute (previously known as a Type-1 institute) to a University Institute (previously known as a Type 2 institute) pursuant to State University System of Florida Board of Governors Regulation 10.015.^[4]

This rechartering and move of FSI also coincided with two significant events. The first, on a national level, was the end of NASA's Space Shuttle program in 2011, the associated uncertainties regarding the future of U.S. manned space flight, and the anticipated negative economic impacts to Central Florida in general and Brevard County in particular as both NASA and NASA contractor activities and employment contracted. The second event, on a state level, was the April 2012 direction to the Board of Governors of the State University System of Florida to transition the then-University of South Florida Polytechnic, a Polk County/Lakeland, Florida branch campus of the University of South Florida in Tampa, to a totally independent institution. Renamed Florida Polytechnic University (FPU), it would become the 12th public university in Florida and the only one focused exclusively on undergraduate and postgraduate STEM degrees pursuant to Florida Senate Bill 1994 and Section 1004.345 of the Florida Statutes (2012).^[5][6]

Today, FSI continues its primary mission of supporting space research, development, and educational activities within the University of Central Florida (UCF) and in partnership with other FSI member public and private colleges and universities in Florida. FSI also executes an additional role to support the development of Florida’s diverse space economy within its civilian, military/national defense, and commercial segments. FSI also administratively houses the Florida Space Grant Consortium (FSCG) for NASA and operates the Space Research Initiative (SRI) for the State of Florida.^[7]

The Florida Space Institute is part of a broad statewide partnership within the State University System to support and expand Florida's involvement in the field of space exploration. Since its move to Orlando, the institute falls under the organizational and fiscal governance of UCF, though it continues to support research and development projects and services at partner institutions in the State University System as well as government and corporate institutions.^[8]

• Broward College
• Eastern Florida State College, formerly known as Brevard Community College
• Embry Riddle Aeronautical University
• Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University
• Florida Atlantic University
• Florida Institute of Technology
• Florida Polytechnic University
• Florida State University
• University of Florida
• University of Miami
• University of South Florida

• Federal Emergency Management Agency
• NASA
• NASA Ames Research Center
• NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Kennedy Space Center
• National Science Foundation

• Blue Origin
• SpaceX
• Yang Enterprises

The Arecibo Observatory was the world's most powerful planetary radar system, which provided ground-based observations whose quality could only be exceeded with a spacecraft flyby. Built into a natural sinkhole, the 305-meter Arecibo telescope was equipped with a cable-mount steerable receiver and several radar transmitters for emitting signals mounted 150 m (492 ft) above the dish. Completed in 1963, it was the world's largest single-aperture telescope for 53 years, surpassed in July 2016 by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China.

Its 1 MW transmitter at S-band (12.6 cm, 2380 MHz) was used for studies of small bodies in the Solar System, terrestrial planets, and planetary satellites including the Moon. The Arecibo planetary radar was a powerful tool for post-discovery characterization of near-Earth objects, planets, and moons. In addition to precise line-of-sight velocity and range information, depending on the target's size and distance, planetary radar is useful for quickly estimating the instantaneous rotation rate of near-Earth asteroids, resolving the target's size, detecting potential satellites, and ultimately resolving the shape through inverse modeling efforts.^[9]

On August 10, 2020 and November 6, 2020, two of the receiver's support cables broke and the National Science Foundation (NSF) subsequently announced that it would decommission the telescope. The telescope subsequently sustained a catastrophic collapse on December 1, 2020.^[10] In 2022, the NSF announced that the telescope would not be rebuilt, and an educational facility was to be established on the site.

Researchers: Dr. Maxime Devogele, Dr. Estela Fernandez-Valenzuela, Dr. Sean Marshall, Dr. Anna McGilvray, Dr. Noemi Pinilla-Alonso, Dr. Mario De Pra, Dr. Charles Schambeau, Dr. Ana Carolina De Souza Feliciano, Dr. Flaviane Venditti, Dr. Luisa Fernanda Zambrano-Marin.^[2][11]

Radio astronomy is the study of radio waves produced by a multitude of astronomical objects such as the Sun, planets, pulsars, stars, star-forming regions (i.e., the birthplace of stars), gas clouds, galaxies, supernova remnants, etc. The high sensitivity of the Arecibo radio telescope has allowed astronomers to detect faint radio signals from far-off regions of the universe. The areas of research include Fast radio bursts, Heliophysics and Space weather, Pulsar Studies, Spectral line Studies, Exoplanets, and Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI).^[12]

Researchers: Dr. Periasamy K. Manoharan, Dr. Anna McGilvray, Dr. Benetge Bhakthi Pranama Perera, Dr. Anish Roshi, Dr. Allison Smith, Dr. Sravani Vaddi.^[2][11]

Atmospheric science is the investigation of the Earth's gaseous envelope. Experiments performed at Arecibo measured upper atmosphere composition, temperature, and densities in order to understand the controlling physical processes. The Arecibo Radio Telescope was able to measure the growth and decay of disturbances in the changing layers of charged particles that populate the region known as the ionosphere (i.e., altitudes above 30 miles). The "big dish" was also used to study plasma physics processes in the electrically charged regions of the Earth's atmosphere. where radio waves are influenced most.^[13]

Researchers: Dr. Christiano Garnett Marques Brum, Dr. Selvaraj Dharmalingam, Dr. Jens Lautenbach, Dr. Shikha Raizada, Dr. Pedrina Terra dos Santos, Dr. Sukanta Sau, Dr. Michael Peter Sulzer.^[2][11]

• Brisset, J., Miletich, T. and Metzger, P., 2020. Thermal extraction of water ice from the lunar surface-A 3D numerical model. Planetary and Space Science, 193, p.105082.
• Brisset, J., Colwell, J., Dove, A., Abukhalil, S., Cox, C. and Mohammed, N., 2018. Regolith behavior under asteroid-level gravity conditions: low-velocity impact experiments. Progress in Earth and Planetary Science, 5(1), pp.1-21.
•  Brisset, J., Heißelmann, D., Kothe, S., Weidling, R. and Blum, J., 2016. Submillimetre-sized dust aggregate collision and growth properties-Experimental study of a multi-particle system on a suborbital rocket. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 593, p.A3.

• University of Central Florida research centers

• Florida Space Institute
• University of Central Florida
• Florida Space Grant Consortium
• Arecibo Observatory