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","manageGaps":false,"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","manageGaps":false,"acronymOrTitle":"SBIR/STTR"},"description":"One of the key elements of NASA's future human exploration plans is the development of human-tended deep space habitats. These may serve as habitats during transfer from Earth to a destination (the Moon, Mars, etc), or serve as periodically-inhabited orbital bases. For all of these deep-space habitats, especially ones left in orbit around a destination planet or Moon, astronaut time at the habitat will be both infrequent, and very valuable. As such it would be extremely desirable to develop ways to enable robots to outfit the habitat prior to human occupation, and to allow robots to perform maintenance and logistics tasks both when humans are present and when they are not. These robotic interaction aids ideally can serve three purposes: 1) helping robots determine their relative pose and position with respect to the target, and their relative location/pose inside or outside the habitat, 2) identifying what the objects are, especially if the objects are mobile like soft-goods bags, and 3) simplifying physical interactions with the object, including anchoring to and manipulating the object. To enable these types of robotic interactions, Altius proposes the development of a lightweight, low-cost, passive \"DogTag\" robotic interface that can be attached to various habitat structures and objects. The DogTag interface includes: 1) a thin (<0.4mm) ferromagnetic material layer that allows robots with magnetic grippers to stick to the DogTag, 2) a printed on long-range optical fiducial on the DogTag face for allowing the robot to determine relative pose and position of the object even from across a large habitat, 3) an identification code and possibly RFID tag for identifying the object, also on the DogTag face, and 4) methods for attaching the DogTag to the desired object. During Phase I, Altius and team will define requirements, develop and test the optical fiducials and identification codes, and develop conceptual DogTag designs and prototypes, raising the TRL from 2 to 3.","benefits":"The key NASA applications for this robotic interface include: 1) enabling robotic outfitting of orbital habitats and related maintenance and logistics tasks by providing lightweight robotic navigation and capture interfaces that can be easily integrated into habitat structures, tools, and soft-goods bags, 2) robotic navigation and capture interfaces enabling free-flying robots to assist astronauts on EVA missions, 3) lightweight robotic navigation and capture interfaces for cooperative satellite servicing.