NASA ‘landers’ pre-solicitation draft

As NASA celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first crewed landing on the moon this past week, it has released some more details about how it will procure “landers” to enable humans to return to the moon in the 2020s. NASA released a July 19 notice for its Human Landing System Integrated Lander effort, part of the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) program. The notice included a pre-solicitation draft version of a broad agency announcement (BBA) with NASA requesting industry comments on it by Aug. 2. NASA intends to release a solicitation under the second NextSTEP-2 BAA to seek proposals from industry for the development of integrated human lunar landers and execution of crewed flight demonstrations to the lunar surface by 2024. The primary objective of this NextSTEP-2 Appendix H BAA (HLS - Integrated Lander) is to enable the rapid development of a safe and functional human landing system (HLS) that can meet NASA and industry requirements and execute a crewed demonstration mission of HLS to the Moon no later than 2024. To achieve long-term lunar lander sustainability, this BAA also has a contract option that NASA may elect to exercise for the development and, in 2026, demonstration of a sustainable HLS Integrated Lander in order to enable more permanent human access to the lunar surface. NASA anticipates that it will initially award multiple HLS contracts, followed by potential down-selection among these HLS contractors as work progresses through the exercise of options at various stages of the development effort. Intent of Draft BAA: NASA is releasing this draft BAA to give industry an opportunity to provide feedback on any aspect of the BAA; NASA strongly encourages industry to carefully review this draft and identify any areas of ambiguity or concern. NASA will seriously consider this feedback and, when appropriate, amend the final BAA. (Source: Fed Biz Ops 07/22/19)