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
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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":"Recurring slope linae (RSL), such as those in Newton Crater on Mars, methane plumes in hazardous Martian terrain, and water ice discovered during the LCROSS experiment in the Moon?s permanently shadowed Cabeus Crater drive the need for a new generation of robotic explorers that access, probe, extract, and return resources from extreme terrains. These robots must possess sufficient system-level autonomy to operate without human guidance due to latency constraints over vast distances, and must also have perceptual capabilities to analyze sensor measurements and the belief state to make decisions about where to explore and whether a target is worth sampling. This enhanced exploration capability takes advantage of perceptual models that can encode the probability of the existence of a resource given material properties estimated from current and prior sensor measurements. The proposed program innovates novel perceptual models and exploration algorithms that maximize the likelihood of detecting resources if they are present and enables robots to make decisions about where to loiter in order to sample terrain for a particular resource. Beyond topical research, the program will ruggedize Phase 1 software to operate in the presence of sensor and state uncertainty, integrate the capabilities on physical robots, and demonstrate results in relevant, subterranean field test. Besides RSL and craters, the research enables exploration and access of cryovolcanoes, steep and deep gullies, and canyons. Terrestrial applications include the detection of radiation in contaminated facilities or explosive gases and flammable dust in mines, surveying urban canyons, and exploring bunkers and caves.","benefits":"Aerial prospecting enables future missions to rapidly explore and quantify localized resources such as peaks of persistent light, planetary caves, and volatile-rich regions. This program delivers guidance and algorithms for precision safe landing and maneuvering. The immediate markets within NASA are for exploration and science missions to surface destinations on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids. Phase II development occurs in the context of a mission to the Moon and Mars. The technologies are enabling for future missions that prospect by rover, but the principles apply to precise touchdown and is applicable to near term missions such as Mars 2020, RP, and Asteroid Redirect. The proposed innovations in guidance improve mission capability by enhancing landing precision, enabling access to previously inaccessible terrain, providing accurate autonomous target-relative navigation, modeling a target on board a spacecraft; and providing a light weight, power efficient solution to TRN. This capability enables robotic exploration of areas with the highest scienti c value and future human exploration. The RP, currently in Phase A with a target launch in 2019, has a $250M budget reserved. Science return is dependent on landing in an identi ed region with high volatile content and near regions of permanent dark. Polar terrain on the Moon is hazardous and lighting varies locally, so precise landing relative to terrain is critical.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":"The proposed program innovates subsurface prospecting by planetary drones to seek a solution to the difficulty of robotic prospecting, sample acquisition, and sample characterization at multiple hazardous locations in a single mission. Innovation focuses on a specific, challenging scenario: sub-surface access of multiple lava tubes by drones far enough from Earth for speed-of-light latency to preclude direct human control. The technology will be broadly applicable to resource prospecting in cold traps, dark craters, cryovolcanoes, asteroids, comets, and other planets. The technology is also applicable to Earth-relevant problems such as the detection of poisonous and explosive gases and flammable dust in mines; and surveying urban canyons; exploring bunkers and caves. The proposed innovation is the development of Anytime Motion Planners that can generate feasible guidance routines to accomplish subsurface prospecting by planetary drones. Anytime Motion Planners are algorithms that can quickly identify an initial feasible plan, then, given more computation time available during plan execution, improve the plan toward an optimal solution. In addition to Anytime Motion Planners, optimal guidance routines will also be innovated in this work by formulating the Generic Autonomous Guidance Optimal Control Problem (Problem G&C) (Pavone, Acikmese, Nesnas, & Starek, 2013) as a convex optimization problem and employing interior-point methods to solve the resulting problem to global optimality. This work will determine whether optimal solutions may be computed quickly enough to be useful in practice.","benefits":"The immediate markets within NASA are for exploration and science missions to surface destinations on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids. The proposed innovations in guidance improve mission capability by enhancing landing and flying precision; enabling access to previously inaccessible terrain; providing accurate autonomous target-relative navigation; modeling a target onboard a spacecraft; and providing a flight-ready, power efficient solution to TRN. Potential applications to NASA include: (1) Resource Prospector Mission, currently in Phase A with a target launch in 2019, has a $250M budget reserved. Science return is dependent on landing in an identified region with high volatile content and near regions of permanent dark. Polar terrain on the Moon is hazardous and lighting varies locally, so precise landing relative to terrain is exceptionally important. (2) The Mars Science Lab (total project budget of $2.5B with ~$550M expended on operations ) and Mars 2020 (budget $1.5B ). The technology developed by this research could enhance landing precision and enable landing at the location of highest value, enhancing mission science return. (3) At least six planned NASA missions – Asteroid Redirect, Comet Surface Sample Return, Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return, Lunar Geophyisical Network, Mars Astrobiology Explorer-Cacher (Max C), and Venus In-Situ explorer – could be enhanced by this technology.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":"Recurring slope linae (RSL), such as those in Newton Crater on Mars, methane plumes in hazardous Martian terrain, and water ice discovered during the LCROSS experiment in the Moon?s permanently shadowed Cabeus Crater drive the need for a new generation of robotic explorers that access, probe, extract, and return resources from extreme terrains. These robots must possess sufficient system-level autonomy to operate without human guidance due to latency constraints over vast distances, and must also have perceptual capabilities to analyze sensor measurements and the belief state to make decisions about where to explore and whether a target is worth sampling. This enhanced exploration capability takes advantage of perceptual models that can encode the probability of the existence of a resource given material properties estimated from current and prior sensor measurements. The proposed program innovates novel perceptual models and exploration algorithms that maximize the likelihood of detecting resources if they are present and enables robots to make decisions about where to loiter in order to sample terrain for a particular resource. Beyond topical research, the program will ruggedize Phase 1 software to operate in the presence of sensor and state uncertainty, integrate the capabilities on physical robots, and demonstrate results in relevant, subterranean field test. Besides RSL and craters, the research enables exploration and access of cryovolcanoes, steep and deep gullies, and canyons. Terrestrial applications include the detection of radiation in contaminated facilities or explosive gases and flammable dust in mines, surveying urban canyons, and exploring bunkers and caves.","benefits":"Aerial prospecting enables future missions to rapidly explore and quantify localized resources such as peaks of persistent light, planetary caves, and volatile-rich regions. This program delivers guidance and algorithms for precision safe landing and maneuvering. The immediate markets within NASA are for exploration and science missions to surface destinations on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids. Phase II development occurs in the context of a mission to the Moon and Mars. The technologies are enabling for future missions that prospect by rover, but the principles apply to precise touchdown and is applicable to near term missions such as Mars 2020, RP, and Asteroid Redirect. The proposed innovations in guidance improve mission capability by enhancing landing precision, enabling access to previously inaccessible terrain, providing accurate autonomous target-relative navigation, modeling a target on board a spacecraft; and providing a light weight, power efficient solution to TRN. This capability enables robotic exploration of areas with the highest scienti c value and future human exploration. The RP, currently in Phase A with a target launch in 2019, has a $250M budget reserved. Science return is dependent on landing in an identi ed region with high volatile content and near regions of permanent dark. Polar terrain on the Moon is hazardous and lighting varies locally, so precise landing relative to terrain is critical.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":"Recurring slope linae (RSL), such as those in Newton Crater on Mars, methane plumes in hazardous Martian terrain, and water ice discovered during the LCROSS experiment in the Moon?s permanently shadowed Cabeus Crater drive the need for a new generation of robotic explorers that access, probe, extract, and return resources from extreme terrains. These robots must possess sufficient system-level autonomy to operate without human guidance due to latency constraints over vast distances, and must also have perceptual capabilities to analyze sensor measurements and the belief state to make decisions about where to explore and whether a target is worth sampling. This enhanced exploration capability takes advantage of perceptual models that can encode the probability of the existence of a resource given material properties estimated from current and prior sensor measurements. The proposed program innovates novel perceptual models and exploration algorithms that maximize the likelihood of detecting resources if they are present and enables robots to make decisions about where to loiter in order to sample terrain for a particular resource. Beyond topical research, the program will ruggedize Phase 1 software to operate in the presence of sensor and state uncertainty, integrate the capabilities on physical robots, and demonstrate results in relevant, subterranean field test. Besides RSL and craters, the research enables exploration and access of cryovolcanoes, steep and deep gullies, and canyons. Terrestrial applications include the detection of radiation in contaminated facilities or explosive gases and flammable dust in mines, surveying urban canyons, and exploring bunkers and caves.","benefits":"Aerial prospecting enables future missions to rapidly explore and quantify localized resources such as peaks of persistent light, planetary caves, and volatile-rich regions. This program delivers guidance and algorithms for precision safe landing and maneuvering. The immediate markets within NASA are for exploration and science missions to surface destinations on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids. Phase II development occurs in the context of a mission to the Moon and Mars. The technologies are enabling for future missions that prospect by rover, but the principles apply to precise touchdown and is applicable to near term missions such as Mars 2020, RP, and Asteroid Redirect. The proposed innovations in guidance improve mission capability by enhancing landing precision, enabling access to previously inaccessible terrain, providing accurate autonomous target-relative navigation, modeling a target on board a spacecraft; and providing a light weight, power efficient solution to TRN. This capability enables robotic exploration of areas with the highest scienti c value and future human exploration. The RP, currently in Phase A with a target launch in 2019, has a $250M budget reserved. Science return is dependent on landing in an identi ed region with high volatile content and near regions of permanent dark. Polar terrain on the Moon is hazardous and lighting varies locally, so precise landing relative to terrain is critical.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
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