The NASA SBIR and STTR programs fund the research, development, and demonstration of innovative technologies that fulfill NASA needs as described in the annual Solicitations and have significant potential for successful commercialization. If you are a small business concern (SBC) with 500 or fewer employees or a non-profit RI such as a university or a research laboratory with ties to an SBC, then NASA encourages you to learn more about the SBIR and STTR programs as a potential source of seed funding for the development of your innovations.
The SBIR and STTR programs have 3 phases:
The SBIR and STTR Phase I contracts last for 6 months with a maximum funding of $125,000, and Phase II contracts last for 24 months with a maximum funding of $750,000 - $1.5 million.
Opportunity for Continued Technology Development Post-Phase II:
The NASA SBIR/STTR Program currently has in place two initiatives for supporting its small business partners past the basic Phase I and Phase II elements of the program that emphasize opportunities for commercialization. Specifically, the NASA SBIR/STTR Program has the Phase II Enhancement (Phase II-E) and Phase II eXpanded (Phase II-X) contract options.
Please review the links below to obtain more information on the SBIR/STTR programs.
Provides an overview of the SBIR and STTR programs as implemented by NASA
Provides access to the annual SBIR/STTR Solicitations containing detailed information on the program eligibility requirements, proposal instructions and research topics and subtopics
Schedule and links for the SBIR/STTR solicitations and selection announcements
Federal and non-Federal sources of assistance for small business
Search our complete archive of awarded project abstracts to learn about what NASA has funded
Still have questions? Visit the program FAQs
","parentProgram":{"ableToSelect":false,"isActive":true,"description":"Catalyst is a portfolio of early stage programs that specialize in different innovation constituencies and mechanisms to push the state of the art in aerospace technology development","programId":92327,"responsibleMd":{"canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":""},"title":"Catalyst","acronymOrTitle":"Catalyst"},"parentProgramId":92327,"programId":73,"responsibleMd":{"organizationId":4875,"organizationName":"Space Technology Mission Directorate","acronym":"STMD","organizationType":"NASA_Mission_Directorate","canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":"NASA Mission Directorate"},"responsibleMdOffice":4875,"stockImageFileId":36648,"title":"Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer","acronymOrTitle":"SBIR/STTR"},"description":"Accurate wide-area mapping of three-dimensional (3D) wind vectors plays an important role in our ability to understand climate processes, predict weather patterns and hazards, and unravel planetary atmospheric dynamics, both on Earth and extraterrestrially. To this end, NASA has several airborne Doppler lidar platforms (e.g., DAWN, MACAWS) that are capable of mapping 3D wind vectors. These systems are large, heavy, and costly, requiring full-sized crewed aircraft (e.g., DC-8) to operate them and provide 3D wind measurements only along a single direction, thus limiting their utility. To address this barrier, Boulder Nonlinear Systems (BNS) proposes a 3D wind sensor system with low size, weight, and power (SWaP) requirements that can be deployed on small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for wider coverage and cheaper operation. The proposed system is built around exclusive electro-optic beam scanner technology and many commercial off-the-shelf components from the telecom industry. Current mechanical beam scanning solutions are heavy, power hungry, and slow, and constitute a significant portion of the mass of 3D wind sensors and other optical sensor platforms. In contrast, BNS' non-mechanical beam scanner can reduce scanner mass by an order of magnitude and power consumption by three orders of magnitude, while simultaneously providing new mission capabilities such as fast random-access scanning and hemispherical sensor coverage. Phase I will fully characterize the impact of the beam scanner on Doppler lidar measurements and demonstrate recovery of 3D velocity vectors using an existing low-SWaP short-range Doppler lidar prototype developed for long-range rifle ballistics. In Phase II, BNS will partner with an existing lidar wind sensor contractor for development of the full UAV wind sensor prototype using either BNS' existing lidar prototype or integrating BNS' low-SWaP beam scanner onto the partner's wind sensing platform, as desired by NASA.","benefits":"The full UAV-deployable 3D wind sensor platform that is to be developed in this two-phase effort is anticipated to have multiple applications relevant to current or upcoming NASA missions. Specific recent and ongoing relevant NASA missions include: - Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) - Studies of Emissions and Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys (SEAC4RS) - Development and Evaluation of Satellite Validation Tools by Experimenters (DEVOTE), - Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP). In more general terms, the proposed wind sensor will have applications in any airborne NASA mission seeking to better understand tropospheric wind patterns, weather dynamics, and climate processes while aiding calibration and validation of satellite-bound technologies for global wind measurement and extraterrestrial wind sensing missions (e.g., Venus). The technology developed in this project, especially the versatile lidar beam scanning system in Phase I, can be tailored for a number of other NASA sensor platforms as well, such as for differential absorption lidar (DIAL) or other absorption-based optical sensing techniques.The NASA SBIR and STTR programs fund the research, development, and demonstration of innovative technologies that fulfill NASA needs as described in the annual Solicitations and have significant potential for successful commercialization. If you are a small business concern (SBC) with 500 or fewer employees or a non-profit RI such as a university or a research laboratory with ties to an SBC, then NASA encourages you to learn more about the SBIR and STTR programs as a potential source of seed funding for the development of your innovations.
The SBIR and STTR programs have 3 phases:
The SBIR and STTR Phase I contracts last for 6 months with a maximum funding of $125,000, and Phase II contracts last for 24 months with a maximum funding of $750,000 - $1.5 million.
Opportunity for Continued Technology Development Post-Phase II:
The NASA SBIR/STTR Program currently has in place two initiatives for supporting its small business partners past the basic Phase I and Phase II elements of the program that emphasize opportunities for commercialization. Specifically, the NASA SBIR/STTR Program has the Phase II Enhancement (Phase II-E) and Phase II eXpanded (Phase II-X) contract options.
Please review the links below to obtain more information on the SBIR/STTR programs.
Provides an overview of the SBIR and STTR programs as implemented by NASA
Provides access to the annual SBIR/STTR Solicitations containing detailed information on the program eligibility requirements, proposal instructions and research topics and subtopics
Schedule and links for the SBIR/STTR solicitations and selection announcements
Federal and non-Federal sources of assistance for small business
Search our complete archive of awarded project abstracts to learn about what NASA has funded
Still have questions? Visit the program FAQs
","parentProgram":{"ableToSelect":false,"isActive":true,"description":"Catalyst is a portfolio of early stage programs that specialize in different innovation constituencies and mechanisms to push the state of the art in aerospace technology development","programId":92327,"responsibleMd":{"canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":""},"title":"Catalyst","acronymOrTitle":"Catalyst"},"parentProgramId":92327,"programId":73,"responsibleMd":{"organizationId":4875,"organizationName":"Space Technology Mission Directorate","acronym":"STMD","organizationType":"NASA_Mission_Directorate","canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":"NASA Mission Directorate"},"responsibleMdOffice":4875,"stockImageFileId":36648,"title":"Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer","acronymOrTitle":"SBIR/STTR"},"description":"Accurate wide-area mapping of three-dimensional (3D) wind vectors plays an important role in our ability to understand climate processes, predict weather patterns and hazards, and unravel planetary atmospheric dynamics, both on Earth and extraterrestrially. To this end, NASA has several airborne Doppler lidar platforms (e.g., DAWN, MACAWS) that are capable of mapping 3D wind vectors. These systems are large, heavy, and costly, requiring full-sized crewed aircraft (e.g., DC-8) to operate them and provide 3D wind measurements only along a single direction, thus limiting their utility. To address this barrier, Boulder Nonlinear Systems (BNS) proposes a 3D wind sensor system with low size, weight, and power (SWaP) requirements that can be deployed on small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for wider coverage and cheaper operation. The proposed system is built around exclusive electro-optic beam scanner technology and many commercial off-the-shelf components from the telecom industry. Current mechanical beam scanning solutions are heavy, power hungry, and slow, and constitute a significant portion of the mass of 3D wind sensors and other optical sensor platforms. In contrast, BNS' non-mechanical beam scanner can reduce scanner mass by an order of magnitude and power consumption by three orders of magnitude, while simultaneously providing new mission capabilities such as fast random-access scanning and hemispherical sensor coverage. Phase I will fully characterize the impact of the beam scanner on Doppler lidar measurements and demonstrate recovery of 3D velocity vectors using an existing low-SWaP short-range Doppler lidar prototype developed for long-range rifle ballistics. In Phase II, BNS will partner with an existing lidar wind sensor contractor for development of the full UAV wind sensor prototype using either BNS' existing lidar prototype or integrating BNS' low-SWaP beam scanner onto the partner's wind sensing platform, as desired by NASA.","benefits":"The full UAV-deployable 3D wind sensor platform that is to be developed in this two-phase effort is anticipated to have multiple applications relevant to current or upcoming NASA missions. Specific recent and ongoing relevant NASA missions include: - Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) - Studies of Emissions and Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys (SEAC4RS) - Development and Evaluation of Satellite Validation Tools by Experimenters (DEVOTE), - Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP). In more general terms, the proposed wind sensor will have applications in any airborne NASA mission seeking to better understand tropospheric wind patterns, weather dynamics, and climate processes while aiding calibration and validation of satellite-bound technologies for global wind measurement and extraterrestrial wind sensing missions (e.g., Venus). The technology developed in this project, especially the versatile lidar beam scanning system in Phase I, can be tailored for a number of other NASA sensor platforms as well, such as for differential absorption lidar (DIAL) or other absorption-based optical sensing techniques.