The purpose of this ISS National Lab Research Announcement (NLRA) is to solicit proposals focused on flight investigations within applied research and development, translational medicine, technology readiness level maturation, and technology demonstration to be performed on the space station. Flight projects selected via this research announcement may be awarded funding to enable mission integration and operations support for projects that will be implemented on the ISS.
CASIS, in coordination with NASA, has identified multiple ISS National Lab lines of business that support strategic priorities and programmatic focus areas aimed at bringing value to our nation and enabling a robust and scalable market in low Earth orbit. Technology development and demonstration enabled by access to space brings significant growth potential from the ability to accelerate technology maturation. Through this research announcement, offerors may propose to use the unique ISS environment to develop, test, or mature products and processes that have a demonstrated potential to produce near-term and positive direct or indirect economic impact.
This research announcement will follow a two-step proposal submission process. Before being invited to submit a full proposal, all interested investigators must first complete and submit for review a Step 1: Concept Summary.
Concept Summary Due Date: March 4, 2024
Invited Full Proposal Due Date: May 7, 2024
Proposals are evaluated along four “lines of business,” which are strategic focus areas of the ISS National Lab: 1) fundamental science, 2) in-space production applications, 3) education, outreach and workforce development, and 4) technology development/demonstration. These instructions are for the technology development/demonstration line of business for applied research and development (R&D), technology demonstration, and technology readiness level (TRL) maturation, to improve products and/or processes that will produce positive economic impact. All projects with an expressed commercial purpose or intent are included.