STMD Solicitations and Opportunities
This page provides information about ways to engage with STMD through current and forthcoming solicitations or opportunities. Please also view STMD’s Tipping Point and Announcement of Collaboration Opportunities page. To see what STMD opportunities might be best suited for you, visit TechPort.
Open Solicitations and Opportunities
NASA Seeks Input for Future Lunar Surface Resource Utilization Demo
Submissions Due: December 18, 2023
NASA Seeks Development of Universal Payload Interface
Registration Due: February 1, 2024, at 5pm ET, Application Due: February 22, 2024, at 5pm ET
FUTURE SOLICITATIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES – upcoming solicitation release dates are pending and are subject to change.
The 2024 Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge
August 2023 – The BIG Idea Challenge is an initiative supporting STMD’s Game Changing Development (GCD) program whose efforts rapidly mature innovative and high-impact capabilities and technologies for infusion into a broad array of future NASA missions. The challenge provides undergraduate, graduate students, and faculty the opportunity to design, develop, and demonstrate their technology in an intensive project-based program over the course of a year-and-a-half, with NASA engineers and scientists adopting innovations initiated by and furthered by the university teams.
NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities (NSTGRO)
September 2023 – Through this opportunity, STMD seeks to sponsor U.S. citizen and permanent resident graduate students who show significant potential to contribute to NASA’s goal of creating innovative new space technologies for our nation’s science, exploration and economic future. NASA Space Technology Graduate Researchers will perform innovative, space technology research at their respective campuses and at NASA Centers. Awards are made in the form of grants to accredited U.S. universities on behalf of individuals pursuing master’s or doctoral degrees, with the faculty advisor serving as the principal investigator.
NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) 2024 Phase I Call for Proposals
October 2023 – The NIAC program supports visionary research ideas through multiple progressive phases of study. Phase II develops concepts for up to two years. Researchers must prepare a roadmap for further development but are not expected to fully advance the technologies to a level required for NASA or commercial transition.
NASA SBIR/STTR Solicitations
Phase I January 2024 – The NASA SBIR and STTR Phase I solicitations are open to small businesses with 500 or fewer employees. To apply for an STTR, a small business must partner with a non-profit research institution such as a university or a research laboratory. SBIR Phase I contracts last for six months and STTR Phase I contracts last for 13 months, both with a maximum funding of $150,000. Phase II solicitations are posted on the NASA SBIR/STTR program website, though only Phase I awardees are eligible to apply. SBIR and STTR Phase II contracts last for 24 months and have a minimum funding amount of $850,000. Post-phase II funding opportunities are only open to small businesses with Phase I or II awards. See the NASA SBIR/STTR program website for more information.
Early Career Faculty
February 2024 – Through the Early Career Faculty (ECF) solicitation, the Space Technology Research Grants program awards grants to accredited U.S. universities on behalf of outstanding faculty researchers early in their careers. The grants sponsor research in specific high-priority areas of interest to America's space program.
Space Technology Research Institutes (STRI) Solicitations
May/June 2024 – The goal of the Space Technology Research Institutes (STRI) is to strengthen NASA’s ties to the academic community through long-term, sustained investment in research and technology development critical to NASA’s future. The STRIs will enhance and broaden the capabilities of the Nation’s universities to meet the needs of NASA’s science and technology programs. These investments will also create, fortify, and nurture the talent base of highly skilled engineers, scientists, and technologists to improve America’s technological and economic competitiveness.
Space Tech Industry Partnerships
The Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) uses partnerships to expand important space technologies and capabilities.
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