IBM and NASA Release Open-Source Lunar Foundation Model

Product / TechIndustry
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IBM and NASA announced the open-source release of the NASA-IBM Lunar Foundation Model, one of the first publicly available foundation models for scientific exploration of the Moon. The model exceeds widely used methods by up to 23% in identifying key geographic features on the Moon's surface, including potential ice deposits, craters and volcanic formations. A NASA-IBM authored technical paper shows the model reduced error in identifying areas with high potential for lunar ice by up to 22% compared to the SwinV2-B (ImageNet) model, and at context-scale resolution of roughly 100 meters it outperforms SwinV2-B by nearly 19% using just half the training data. Alongside the model, IBM and NASA scientists built the first open-source lunar dataset of its kind, aggregating over 30 spatially-aligned layers from nine instruments across four missions, including data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and GRAIL mission and complementary data from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's SELENE/Kaguya. The release extends the IBM and NASA collaboration and joins the Prithvi family of open foundation models spanning geospatial, weather, heliophysics and now the Moon.

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IBM and NASA open-sourced the Lunar Foundation Model, an R&D/product release that outperforms existing methods in identifying lunar features.

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