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Nine companies have been selected to conduct early-stage studies of concepts for commercial services to support lower-cost, higher-frequency missions to the Red Planet.<\/em><\/p>\n NASA has identified nine U.S. companies to perform a total of 12 concept studies of how commercial services can be applied to enable science missions to Mars. Each awardee will receive between $200,000 and $300,000 to produce a detailed report on potential services \u2014 including payload delivery, communications relay, surface imaging, and payload hosting \u2014 that could support future missions to the Red Planet.<\/p>\n The companies were selected from among those that responded to a Jan. 29 request for proposals from U.S. industry.<\/p>\n NASA\u2019s Mars Exploration Program initiated the request for proposals to help establish a new paradigm for missions to Mars with the potential to advance high-priority science objectives. Many of the selected proposals center on adapting existing projects currently focused on the Moon and Earth to Mars-based applications.<\/p>\n They include \u201cspace tugs\u201d to carry other spacecraft to Mars, spacecraft to host science instruments and cameras, and telecommunications relays. The concepts being sought are intended to support a broad strategy of partnerships between government, industry, and international partners to enable frequent, lower-cost missions to Mars over the next 20 years.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in an exciting new era of space exploration, with rapid growth of commercial interest and capabilities,\u201d said Eric Ianson, director of NASA\u2019s Mars Exploration Program. \u201cNow is the right time for NASA to begin looking at how public-private partnerships could support science at Mars in the coming decades.\u201d<\/p>\n The selected Mars Exploration Commercial Services studies are divided into four categories:<\/p>\n Small payload delivery and hosting services<\/strong><\/p>\n Large payload delivery and hosting services<\/strong><\/p>\n Mars surface-imaging services<\/strong><\/p>\n Next-generation relay services<\/strong><\/p>\n The 12-week studies are planned to conclude in August, and a study summary will be released later in the year. These studies could potentially lead to future requests for proposals but do not constitute a NASA commitment.<\/p>\n NASA is concurrently requesting separate industry proposals for its Mars Sample Return campaign, which seeks to bring samples being collected by the agency\u2019s Perseverance rover to Earth, where they can be studied by laboratory equipment too large and complex to bring to Mars. The MSR industry studies are completely independent of the MEP commercial studies.<\/p>\n NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California manages the Mars Exploration Program on behalf of NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The goal of the program is to provide a continuous flow of scientific information and discovery through a carefully selected series of robotic orbiters, landers, and mobile laboratories interconnected by a high-bandwidth Mars-Earth communications network. Scientific data and associated information for all Mars Exploration Program missions are archived in the NASA Planetary Data System.<\/p>\n Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA.<\/p>\n Andrew Good\n
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Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov<\/p>\n