Companies with technologies that may advance exploration but need a little extra push to finalize development have new opportunities to partner with NASA to make it over the finish line.
Through Tipping Point, NASA seeks to support space technologies that can foster the growth of commercial space capabilities and benefit future agency missions. NASA is also offering businesses a chance to work with agency experts or use facilities to complete their work through a separate Announcement of Collaboration Opportunity.
“NASA’s investment and support at this pivotal stage in development can be the key to ultimately bringing new technologies to market,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Public-private partnerships established through these opportunities will combine agency resources with industry contributions, a benefit that will unlock new ideas to advance how we live and work in space while providing greater value to the American people.”
These opportunities focus on technology development for space infrastructure and capabilities for the Moon and near-Earth space. Selected proposals for working on and near the Moon could include infrastructure for power distribution on the lunar surface, solutions for using lunar resources, or autonomous construction – key components for long-term lunar exploration under Artemis. NASA will also consider proposals for infrastructure and capabilities in Earth orbit – which could range from climate research tools to in-space manufacturing and advanced propulsion.
“Forging strong partnerships with the commercial space economy is critical for driving our nation’s space exploration further and faster,” said Jim Reuter, associate administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA’s Headquarters in Washington, which manages the new opportunities. “I look forward to the new slate of public-private partnerships that will come from these new opportunities.”
Under the Tipping Point opportunity, NASA will award a total of up to $200 million to multiple companies using funded Space Act Agreements. The opportunity also includes incentives for small businesses, allowing companies with fewer than 500 employees to contribute less to the cost of the technology development.
“A funded Space Act Agreement provides more flexibility for commercial partners in intellectual property, private sector contribution, and accounting requirements,” said LK Kubendran, STMD lead on Tipping Point and Announcement of Collaboration Opportunity.
More than half a billion dollars have been awarded to 50 projects since NASA announced the first Tipping Point opportunity in 2015. Space technologies advanced through this funding are now part of current and future mission plans. The Announcement of Collaboration Opportunity allows companies to use NASA facilities and expertise to aid in technology development without a monetary award.
Contract Opportunities to Watch
| Peraton | Peraton, through its subsidiary Perspecta Engineering Inc., has been awarded a contract to assist the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with Data Center and Cloud Optimization (DCCO) Support Services. The DCCO program, worth up to $2.685 billion over 10 years, was awarded through a single award indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract and represents new work for Peraton.
Under the DCCO contract, Peraton will provide a full suite of hybrid compute operations services to manage and operate the DHS Hybrid Computing Environment (HCE). The HCE is a collection of enterprise computing resources including a data center, colocation sites, private cloud services, and DHS furnished commercial cloud services. Peraton will provide DHS the associated professional services to automate, optimize, and modernize across the HCE. The company will leverage its over 50 years of expertise to deliver best-in-class managed service solutions that protect and strengthen the nation’s security. “Peraton is proud to continue our support of DHS and help advance their national security priorities,” said Stu Shea, Peraton’s chairman, president, and CEO. “This award further demonstrates our ability to deliver adaptable, managed enterprise IT services and support DHS’ goal to create scalable, innovative, and cost-effective solutions that support and drive mission success across the Department.” |
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Key Employer in the Cleared Industry
| Booz Allen | Interested in working with the data sets no one else can access? Join the team at Booz Allen—you’ll stay current and make a difference. Ready to bring your unique perspectives to solve diverse problems? Join us. The world can’t wait.
https://youtu.be/YYG55KkK5aw |
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Cleared Opportunities
The DoD will use Oracle National Security Regions (ONSR), which are dedicated Oracle Cloud Infrastructure regions isolated from the internet and connected to only government-specified networks that meet requisite security classifications. DoD assessors granted the Authority to Operate (ATO) which will enable secure processing of some of the Air Force’s most sensitive data. The Air Force uses a broad array of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure services, such as OCI Container Engine for Kubernetes and Oracle Database Cloud Service. This includes using the spatial and graph functions within Oracle Exadata Cloud Service to accelerate data analysis.
Oracle has multiple National Security Regions, in addition to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s global network of US DoD, US FedRAMP, and commercial cloud regions. National Security Regions meet both ICD 705 and ICD 503 standards and are engineered to host missions at DISA Impact Level 6/Secret and Top-Secret security levels, with capabilities including strong encryption and security controls and in-depth auditing. The National Security Regions are designed to deliver identical cloud services to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure commercial regions.
“Oracle has long provided high performance, high availability, and open computing to the DoD and Intelligence Community to securely run their most-demanding, mission-critical classified workloads,” said Glen Dodson, senior vice president, National Security Group, Oracle. “Oracle’s broad data management services and analytics, including built-in AI, are immensely valuable additions to the DoD’s multi-cloud strategy.”
Oracle is a long-standing strategic technology partner of the US Government. With a full range of data management services, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure supports the DoD data decrees and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Acceleration Initiative (ADA) with open data standards and an architecture powered by embedded machine learning. Many federal, state and local customers are using Oracle to deliver critical government services. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is used across the Department of Defense, including the US Army, Navy and Air Force, multiple defense agencies, as well as the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Globally, more than 1,000 public sector organizations are benefitting from Oracle’s industry-leading technologies and superior performance.
