This federal contract award was granted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Shared Services Center to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The $226,523.27 grant is for research related to Distributed Space Missions (DSM), which have mostly been conceptually investigated for Earth science since the late 1990s but have not been systematically integrated into mainstream missions. The interest in DSM was initially limited due to cost and complexity, but the added capabilities DSM can provide to missions are seen as valuable. This contract does not have a set-aside designation. MIT has a history of partnering on federal contracts and grants with various agencies like the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and NASA to conduct cutting-edge research across scientific and engineering disciplines.