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

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2015 15:01:41 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201503302201.t2UM1fd0003047_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

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
Received on Mon 30 Mar 2015 06:01:41 PM PDT