NASA Announces New Collaborative Effort With Commercial Companies

While NASA is currently do doing very little to apply the successful contract approach of funded Space Acts Agreements the agency used to good effect in the COTS and CRS programs where its deep space plans are concerned, the agency is continuing to work around the edges with unfunded Space Act Agreements.

Today, NASA announced the beginning of a new solicitation process called Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities (CCSC). The new initiative “will advance entrepreneurial efforts through access to NASA’s spaceflight resources. Using Space Act Agreements (SAAs), NASA and its partners would agree to a series of mutually beneficial activities. New partnerships must identify benefits under one or more elements of NASA’s 2014 Strategic Plan, which include expanding human presence into the solar system and surface of Mars to advance exploration, science, innovation, benefits to humanity and international collaboration.”

Although it will not result in any exchange of funds, CCSC could be taken as another sign that the agency is increasingly interested in the rapidly emerging capabilities of private industry, and is step by tentative step building the base for dramatically expanded collaborative efforts in the future, should the opportunity arise.

The full solicitation announcement will be made on March 31st.