NASA Logo, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Home

Past Opportunities

Past NASA Opportunities for Suborbital Service Providers

NASA had issued two proposal opportunities to Principal Investigators (PI's), both of which are due December 5th.

One opportunity is an 8 page funded concept study based on NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) science in the fields of Astronomy/Astrophysics; Earth System; Heliophysics; Planetary science and Astrobiology.

  • NASA Research Announcement: Concept Studies for Human Tended Suborbital Science Solicitation: NNH08ZDA001N-HTSS
    Closes Dec 05, 2008. See NRA

A robust response to this call is essential to furthering suborbital science activities on emerging commercial platforms. To effectively respond to this call, the more specifics available to PI’s, the stronger their responses will be from a scientific perspective.

We urge all providers to make as much information as possible available to the science community. This can be accomplished in several ways:

  • Information could be posted on your individual websites and we can encourage PI's to look for insight there.
  • If publicly available information is sent to the HTSS office, we can post it on this site.
  • If, due to intellectual property considerations, any providers are reluctant to state vehicle specifics on public websites, then contact information could be posted and PI's can be encouraged to contact companies directly.

The above discussion as equally applicable to the second opportunity currently available to PI's, an unfunded Request for Information (RFI) that broadly addresses all of NASA’s strategic goals. These range from SMD science to exploration science and biology, technology development and demonstration, training, space experience opportunities for the next generation of PI's, astronaut conditioning, outreach and more.

  • NASA Request for Information: Scientist Participant Suborbital Research Program - FLIGHT RESEARCH - Science Mission Directorate. Solicitation: NNH008ZDA011L. Closes 5 December 2008. See attachment below or See RFI at NSPIRES

Questions from Scientists to Providers

To adequately respond to these opportunities, PI's are interested in all relevant vehicle data including:

  • Possible flight profiles and times in µg
  • g loads throughout the profile
  • Mass, volume, and power availability
  • Access to the external airstream
  • Likely operations, including how many passengers might be in a given flight and what those passengers requirements might be
  • Flight schedule information including frequency and advance notice requirements
  • Interior conditions including temperatures, pressures, gas mixtures and how those parameters change over time
  • Customization possibilities such as the potential for an optical window.
  • Available on-the-shelf hardware

NASA Request for Information: Scientist Participant Suborbital Research Program - SERVICE PROVIDERS - Science Mission Directorate. Solicitation Number: NNH08ZDA003L. Closed - See RFI
First Gov . gov NASA Logo - nasa.gov