Flight Provider Overview
Flight Opportunities rapidly demonstrates space technologies using commercial flight platforms, including rocket-powered suborbital vehicles, high-altitude balloons, aircraft flying parabolic trajectories, and platforms hosting payloads in orbit in cooperation with the Small Spacecraft Technology program.
Two Types of Commercial Collaboration
The program engages with commercial flight providers either by contracting with them directly to provide flight services or by funding researchers to purchase flight services via successful TechFlights proposals.
TechFlights Researcher Agreements
NASA TechFlights Solicitation: Leveraging Suborbital and Hosted Orbital Flight Providers
Providers work directly with researchers proposing to NASA’s TechFlights solicitation to flight test space technologies.
When non-U.S. government researchers compete for funding through the Flight Opportunities program’s TechFlights solicitation, they can propose to use any eligible U.S.-based commercial provider. We encourage industry providers to review previous TechFlights solicitations to understand the eligibility requirements and also to regularly engage directly with the researcher community so that potential TechFlights proposers the available capabilities and services available.
Learn more about participating flight providers.
NASA Flight Services Contracts
Suborbital/Hosted Orbital Flight and Payload Integration Services
Flight Opportunities manages a variety of contracts with industry providers to fly payloads in the relevant environments required to advance technologies’ readiness for use in future missions. This includes the use of suborbital vehicles as well as orbital platforms – in cooperation with NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program – to test payloads at high altitudes, under reduced gravity, in a vacuum, and in other challenging spaceflight conditions.
These contracts can be utilized for flight tests of payloads developed by both government researchers as well as external researchers that the government is supporting.
Learn more about NASA-contracted providers.
