[meteorite-list] NASA Announces New Partnerships with U.S. Industry for Key Deep-Space Capabilities

[Ron Baalke]

March 30, 2015
     
NASA Announces New Partnerships with U.S. Industry for Key Deep-Space Capabilities

Building on the success of NASA's partnerships with commercial industry to 
date, NASA has selected 12 Next Space Technologies for Exploration 
Partnerships (NextSTEP) to advance concept studies and technology development 
projects in the areas of advanced propulsion, habitation and small 
satellites.

Through these public-private partnerships, selected companies will partner 
with NASA to develop the exploration capabilities necessary to enable 
commercial endeavors in space and human exploration to deep-space 
destinations such as the proving ground of space around the moon, known as 
cis-lunar space, and Mars.

"Commercial partners were selected for their technical ability to mature 
key technologies and their commitment to the potential applications both for 
government and private sector uses,' said William Gerstenmaier, associate 
administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA Headquarters. 
"This work ultimately will inform the strategy to move human presence 
further into the solar system."

Results from these studies and hardware developments also will help determine 
the role for international partner involvement, by fully exploring domestic 
capabilities, and for Orion and Space Launch Systems missions in cis-lunar 
space. This work also will advance system understanding and define a need for 
further testing of habitation systems and components on the International 
Space Station.

Selected advanced electric propulsion projects will develop propulsion 
technology systems in the 50- to 300-kilowatt range to meet the needs of a 
variety of deep space mission concepts. State-of-the-art electric propulsion 
technology currently employed by NASA generates less than five kilowatts, and 
systems being developed for the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) Broad Area 
Announcement (BAA) are in the 40-kilowatt range.

The three NextSTEP advanced propulsion projects, $400,000 to $3.5 million per 
year per award, will have no more than a three-year performance period 
focused on ground testing efforts. The selected companies are:

 * Ad Astra Rocket Company of Webster, Texas
 * Aeroject Rocketdyne Inc. of Redmond, Washington
 * MSNW LLC of Redmond, Washington

Habitation systems selections will help define the architecture and 
subsystems of a modular habitation capability to enable extended missions in 
deep space. Orion is the first component of human exploration beyond 
low-Earth orbit and will be capable of sustaining a crew of four for 21 days 
in deep space and returning them safely to Earth.

These selections are intended to augment the Orion capsule with the 
development of capabilities to initially sustain a crew of four for up to 60 
days in cis-lunar space with the ability to scale up to transit habitation 
capabilities for future Mars missions. The selected projects will address 
concepts and, in some cases, provide advancement in technologies related to 
habitation and operations, or environmental control and life support 
capabilities of a habitation system.

The seven NextSTEP habitat projects will have initial performance periods of 
up to 12 months, at a value of $400,000 to $1 million for the study and 
development efforts, and the potential for follow-on phases to be defined 
during the initial phase. The selected companies are:

 * Bigelow Aerospace LLC of North Las Vegas, Nevada
 * The Boeing Company of Pasadena, Texas
 * Dynetics Inc. of Huntsville, Alabama
 * Hamilton Sundstrand Space Systems International of Windsor Locks,
   Connecticut
 * Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company of Denver, Colorado
 * Orbital ATK of Dulles, Virginia
 * Orbital Technologies Corporation of Madison, Wisconsin

The CubeSat projects selected through this award will potentially fly as 
secondary payload missions on the first flight of the Space Launch System, 
Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1). CubeSat selections will address NASA's 
strategic knowledge gaps in order to reduce risk, increase effectiveness, and 
improve the design of robotic and human space exploration.

EM-1 will provide a rare opportunity to boost these CubeSats to deep space 
and enable science, technology demonstration, exploration or commercial 
applications in that environment. The two NextSTEP CubeSat projects will have 
fixed-price contracts with technical and payment milestones and total values 
for the entire development and operations of $1.4 to $7.9 million per award. 
The selected companies are:

 * Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company of Denver, Colorado
 * Morehead State University of Morehead, Kentucky

NextSTEP activities will be executed through fixed-price contracts with 
milestone payments, combined with corporate-resource contributions the 
selected partner will provide toward overall study and technology development 
efforts, benefitting NASA and future commercial endeavors.

"This type of public-private partnership helps NASA stimulate the U.S. 
space industry while expanding the frontiers of knowledge, capabilities and 
opportunities in space," said Jason Crusan, director of the Advanced 
Exploration Systems Division (AESD) of NASA's Human Exploration and 
Operations Mission Directorate in Washington.

AESD manages NextSTEP and is committed to pioneering new approaches for 
rapidly developing prototype systems, demonstrating key capabilities and 
validating operational concepts for future human missions beyond Earth orbit.

For additional information about NASA's Next Space Technologies for 
Exploration Partnerships, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nextstep 

-end-

Stephanie Schierholz
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
stephanie.schierholz at nasa.gov