It's still a long way to go before Christmas, but the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) is already giving out contracts worth millions of dollars! NASA awarded a total of $243 million in contracts to small business and institutions, which will keep these entities busy for the remainder of the year.
USRA And Small Engineering Firms
In addition to the $193 million contract NASA awarded to the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) in Maryland, NASA also gave $50 million in grants to 300 entities. These comprise of small engineering firms and established research institutions, said Tech Crunch.
The grants enjoyed by small businesses and institutions are from competition grants which include the Small Business Technology Transfer program and Small Business Innovation Research program. Out of the 1,278 proposals submitted to NASA, the agency only accepted 399, which NASA saw would give benefit, not only to the agency, but also to non-space every day applications.
Host Of Innovative Proposals
NASA posted the proposals, which contain a lot of scientific mouthfuls, but nonetheless innovative ideas. Some proposals pertain to robotics and lasers which might find non-space everyday applicability. NASA also received proposed flight control software systems for drones and landers. There are also air-dropped sensors and imaging systems.
Reports have it that the proposals NASA received for the Small Business Research category sound more promising and feasible, as compared to the Innovative Advanced Concepts category. One example of a proposal that falls in the Innovative Advanced Concepts category was "repurposing an asteroid into a huge cosmic engine." Whew, that is some serious stuff!
Phase I & II
Winning proposals in the Small Business Research category will get funding for six months amounting to $125,000 during the Phase I period. If they get to be good at it, they can proceed to Phase II, and this time around, with a bigger funding of $750,000 from NASA.
Wondering why USRA gets the bulk $193 million? Well, it does both research and testing. It is one huge organization that helps out with everything NASA-related.
Field testing is one, as well as recruitment. With the extensive work it does for NASA, it is no surprise why it receives the bulk of the grants.
