NASA headquarters has the requirement for a global trends in the space sector study, to better understand trends internally and externally related to major technology investment, international…

This federal contract award from NASA Headquarters is for a "Global Trends in the Space Sector Study" to better understand trends related to major technology investment, international relations, and partnership decisions. The $770,000 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract was awarded to the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), a nonprofit FFRDC that provides objective analyses and research to support the U.S. government. The study will summarize cislunar activities and architectures aligned with NASA's Journey to Mars or other future relevant missions, identify required government capabilities, and explore their availability outside of NASA. While the contract is not set aside, IDA often engages subcontractors to contribute specialized capabilities. The study is intended to guide internal government decisions related to international relations and technology investment.

NASA headquarters has the requirement for a global trends in the space sector study, to better understand trends internally and externally related to major technology investment, international relations and partnership-related decisions. The proposed study will provide an external assessment of global capabilities and trends, and their implications for the U.S. Civil space community, primarily NASA. The goal of the analysis is to assess the general directions of the major space powers in terms of their major upcoming missions and areas of capability development with the underlying question - what roles could they play in possible multinational missions. The study will assess national capabilities according to the capabilities solution set framework. The study will also analyze and summarize sets of cislunar activities and architectures, across the U.S. Government, private sector as well as internationally. The scope of work for this requirement is to: summarize one or more sets of cislunar activities and architecture(S) that are aligned either with the journey to mars or some other future relevant mission that requires cislunar activities; for each of architectures, derive a set of whole-of-government cislunar capabilities that would be required; and, explore which of these skills/capabilities are or could be available outside NASA (in the private sector and internationally). This study involves analyzing commercial space suppliers of products and services. Private sector companies have for-profit business relationships with such commercial companies. This study will utilize and leverage the existing methodologies, survey data, interview data, technical knowledge and unique intellectual property developed by stpi previously. The information developed for the study and the proposed analysis will be a result of stpi's privileged access to government information. Private companies, which necessarily have vested interests, may benefit unfairly from access to such information. The study is intended to guide internal government decisions related to international relations and technology investment.