Award of Space Science & Technology Evaluation Facility – First Flight (SSTEF-1)

A firm fixed price contract was awarded to Alpha Space Test and Research Alliance, LLC (Alpha Space) on August 11th, 2021, for a $22,099,122 effort after being selected under the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) NASA Research Announcement (NRA) 80HQTR20NOA01, entitled "Utilizing Public-Private Partnerships to Advance Tipping Point Technologies" (SpaceTech-REDDI-2020), under Topic #2, Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative Technology Demonstration. The NASA STMD mission is to address key research and technology challenges that will advance revolutionary capabilities for both NASA exploration mission challenges and national needs, and also address the market challenges associated with providing state-of-the-art commercial space products and services. The Tipping Point Appendix sought U.S. industry-led proposals for space technology demonstration projects to enable public-private partnerships to accelerate co-development of key capabilities for missions beyond low Earth orbit that would enable the return of humans to the moon for long-term exploration and utilization. Under this effort, Alpha Space will develop a Space Science & Technology Evaluation Facility-First Flight (SSTEF-1) for a general-purpose lunar testbed providing power and data services to individual experiments/payloads for testing at the lunar surface. The work is divided into two phases: Phase 1 (base) is for the design, development, test, and evaluation (DDT&E) of the SSTEF-1 facility; it culminates with a ground demonstration of a fully flight qualified, Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 8 SSTEF-1 system. Phase 2 is a flight demonstration on a lunar payload delivery service lander with third party flight experiments integrated and tested on the Moon. The result of Phase 2 is a TRL9 SSTEF-1 design, TRL9 Lunar Testing as a Service and, potentially, TRL9 technologies resulting from the integrated third-party flight experiments.