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Astrobiology

Tricorder Tech For Everyone: NASA’s STELLA Open Science Instrument

By Keith Cowing

NASA Watch

January 4, 2026

Filed under astrobiology, exploration, NASA GSFC, NASA SMD, STELLA, tricorder

Tricorder Tech For Everyone: NASA’s STELLA Open Science Instrument — Imaginary depiction of an astrobiologist using a future STELLA device on a distant habitable world — Astrobiology.com/Grok INSET: An example STELLA is shown here during a summer 2023 field-testing session outside the lab in a meadow on the campus of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Sophia Rentschler

Keith’s note: NASA has just authored a paper on a new way for people with a wide variety of interests to use – and build – sensor technology that is a preview of the devices we will use to explore other planets. How will we develop these instruments – sensors, tricorders, scanners, smartphones – call them what you will is now underway at NASA. There is a vibrant citizen science / open science / DIY / “hacker” community in America and around the world that seeks to make interesting things out of ordinary materials. Cellphones outperform what we would have called a “super computer” just a generation ago – and they are in everyone’s pocket. Electronic parts can be bought online and how-to instructions are openly available online – globally. Full story