NASA has issued the draft solicitation for the Lunar Enabling Infrastructure Accelerator. We already know the agency plans to lean heavily on the commercial space sector to build out its sustained lunar operations. This NextSTEP-3 release puts that strategy into practice. NASA wants industry input now to iron out the acquisition details, schedules, and evaluation metrics to avoid costly requirements changes down the road.
The accelerator targets five specific gaps in the agency’s current technology roadmap. Instead of funding studies, NASA requires awardees to deliver functional prototype systems and hard performance data within these focus areas:
- Innovative nanomaterials: High-performance materials designed to reduce mass and withstand deep space.
- Surface power: Scalable generation, management, and storage to survive the lunar night.
- Radioisotope power: Nuclear heat and electricity systems for remote, dark environments.
- In-situ resource utilization: Processing local lunar materials into fuel, water, and oxygen.
- In-space advanced manufacturing: Autonomous production of tools to decrease logistics burdens.
This approach allocates technical risk toward the contractors. By requiring validated performance data and physical prototypes, NASA ensures companies establish commercial viability early in the development cycle.
Organizations have until July 17 to submit their comments on SAM.gov.