NASA Awards Contracts For Innovative Lunar Demonstrations Data

Illustration only.

by Staff Writers
Washington DC (SPX) Oct 18, 2010
NASA has awarded Innovative Lunar Demonstrations Data (ILDD) contracts to six companies for the purchase of technical data resulting from industry efforts to develop vehicle capabilities and demonstrate end-to-end robotic lunar landing missions.

The data from these contracts will inform the development of future human and robotic lander vehicles and exploration systems.

The ILDD Broad Agency Announcement resulted in multiple award firm-fixed price indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts with a total value of up to $301 million over a period of up to five years.

For each selected contractor, the minimum government purchase is $10,000, and the maximum government purchase is $10.01 million.

The contracts were awarded to:

Astrobotic Technology Inc., Pittsburgh, Pa.
The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc., Cambridge, Mass.
Dynetics Inc., Huntsville, Ala.
Earthrise Space Inc., Orlando, Fla.
Moon Express Inc., San Francisco Team FREDNET,
The Open Space Society, Inc., Huntsville, Ala.

The ILDD contracts provide for issuance of delivery orders that will specify data associated with system testing and integration, launch, in-space maneuvers, braking burns, lunar landing and other enhanced capabilities.

Knowledge acquired from this data will be applied to the development of lander systems necessary to execute human and robotic missions to the moon, near-Earth asteroids or other solar system destinations.

They will contribute to NASA's efforts to enable affordable and sustainable space exploration.

Awarded contracts will be managed by the Lunar Lander Project Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

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