Nextstep NRA award. This nextstep contract builds upon the success of commercial orbital transportation services space act agreement development program and an existing international space station…

NASA's Johnson Space Center awarded a $2.001 billion cost-plus-award-fee definitive contract to Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation for NEXTSTEP development and product improvement of the Cygnus spacecraft and related cislunar and deep-space transit habitation capabilities, with an ultimate completion date of May 31, 2029.

The contract builds on Northrop Grumman's successful transition from the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Space Act Agreement and existing International Space Station Commercial Resupply Services operations. Under this award, Northrop Grumman will develop the Exploration Augmentation Module architecture using a modular, building-block approach that leverages the operational Cygnus spacecraft to expand cislunar and long-duration deep-space transit habitation capabilities. The Cygnus platform will serve as a modular habitat and test platform for qualifying technologies in distant retrograde orbit and low Earth orbit, either while attached to the ISS or as a free-flyer, supporting NASA's long-term exploration goals while emphasizing evolution of existing systems to better control cost and schedule and reduce development risk.

Place of performance is Sterling, Virginia. The contract incorporates an update to Attachment J-14: Rights in Data. Northrop Grumman self-performs the majority of work; across FY2024–FY2025 SCI-reported invoicing, the company delivered $187.7 million (FY2024, 352 FTEs) and $408.6 million (FY2025, 478 FTEs) in government-paid labor without named subcontractors, at a blended FY2024 rate of $256.66 per hour. The subcontract ecosystem includes Peraton Inc., Odyssey Space Research L.L.C., Pagnotta Engineering Inc., Southwest Research Institute, Moog Inc., and approximately 70 additional named subcontractors across electrical, mechanical, thermal, software, avionics, propulsion, and mission operations support.

Nextstep NRA award. This nextstep contract builds upon the success of commercial orbital transportation services space act agreement development program and an existing international space station (ISS) commercial resupply services (CRS) contract. Orbital has successfully transitioned from COTS to the CRS program, flying three very successful pressurized cargo resupply missions to the ISS, using the cygnus spacecraft. Orbital also successfully developed spacecraft for solar system exploration to include the currently operational dawn mission. This mission was launched in september 2007, completed its rendezvous mission at vesta in july 2012 and is EN route to ceres in early 2015. With space agency budgets continuing to be tight, exploration plans need to emphasize evolution of existing systems, where cost and schedule is better controlled, and development risk reduced. Specifically, elements of the current ISS, including cygnus, can be evolved to support more distant space destinations. To support these endeavors, orbital contributes to the development and product improvement of cygnus and to nextstep activities and have invested in the COTS CRS public-private partnership endeavor. Orbital's exploration augmentation module (BAM) architecture uses a modular, building block approach that leverages the cygnus spacecraft to expand cislunar and long duration deep space transit habitation capabilities and technologies critical to nasas long-term exploration goals. Orbitals architecture concept blends in-production hardware with adaptation, evolution, planning, and forward thinking. Cygnus will serve as a modular habitat and test platform for qualifying technologies in a distant retrograde orbit (DRO) or in a low earth orbit (LEO), either while attached to the ISS or as a free-flyer. Using the existing, operational cygnus to perform these missions has the advantage of decreasing overall development time and costs, and freeing up resources that would be spent on developing a spacecraft to focus on cultivating mission enabling technologies. The goal is to have a cygnus derived EAM deployed in cislunar space before 2020. This spacecraft will be the first building block in supporting both commercial markets and government objectives. The proposed effort for this nextstep BAA phase i, involves defining an EAM architecture and concept of operations (conops) that addresses commercial markets and NASA exploration objectives, technology maturation planning and infrastructure development, and to identify technologies that can be implemented and demonstrated in the issileo environment within the next three years. To mature habitation technologies, the contractor will identify state of the art (SOA) technologies across NASA technology areas (TAS) defined in the NASA technology roadmap. Focus will be on maturation of the following technologies environmental control and life support systems environmental monitoring safety and emergency response and habitation thermal control systems autonomous habitation systems navigation systems management docking and capture mechanisms and deployable habitation elements