NASA wants to team up with industry to develop advanced space technologies for future commercial or government use. The space agency on Wednesday issued an announcement of collaboration opportunity, or ACO, to solicit partnership proposals.
Managed by the Space Technology Mission Directorate, the ACO gives industry partners access to NASA subject matter expertise, facilities, software and hardware to accelerate and enhance capability development.
According to NASA, the ACO will be open for five years and will serve as an umbrella opportunity for topic-specific appendices that would be released every six to 12 months to address evolving needs. For the 2025 appendix, proposals are due on Sept. 24.
The agency will host a webinar to discuss the collaboration opportunity on Aug. 6 at 2 p.m. Eastern time. Interested parties may submit questions and comments ahead of the webinar.
NASA’s Industry Partnerships Over the Years
NASA has been collaborating with industry for years. Since 2015, the agency has been involved in approximately 80 ACO projects.
Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1, or MK1, lunar lander is one example of an ACO project. The space technology company founded by Jeff Bezos secured multiple ACOs to mature the lander’s design. NASA provided Blue Origin with technical assessments and supported testing of the technology at multiple centers to advance the development of the lander’s stacked fuel cell system.
NASA also worked with SpaceX on propellant transfer methods between two Starship spacecraft in low Earth orbit. The agency worked with SpaceX engineers to conduct in-depth computational fluid analysis of the proposed methods. Data from the analysis and from previous NASA research and development enabled SpaceX to identify and mitigate risks with orbital propellant transfers.
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