Small Bodies Assessment Group: Asteroid Redirect Mission Opportunities

To the SBAG community:

Announcement of Upcoming Asteroid Redirect Mission Opportunities

NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission Umbrella for Partnerships <https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=2ea8e54758b0f18ba01674ea9694e92a> (ARM-UP) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) will seek proposals in research areas including partner-provided investigations through systems or payloads to be hosted on the robotic segment of the ARM; collaboration through the ARM Investigation Team to support definition of additional mission investigations; studies to define mission partnership opportunities toward NASA?s planned crewed mission to the multi-ton asteroid boulder; and opportunities for access and experimentation at the asteroid boulder after the crewed mission.

The full BAA Solicitation, with two appendices, is expected to be issued in early September. The ARM-UP BAA will remain open until August 2018, with additional opportunities announced as appendices with their own applicable requirements and milestones.

The first two appendices issued under the omnibus solicitation will be released at the same time as the umbrella BAA. Synopses of the appendices are available on FedBizOpps at:

Appendix A (NNH16ZCQ002K-HP): Hosted Payloads on Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission <https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=11eaef020c80babcd7e8861a60803b22>

Appendix B (NNH16ZCQ002K-ITP1): ARM Investigation Team Phase 1 <https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=31e28662756ebb8f2326fdc9fde50178>

NASA plans to host a virtual industry forum Sept. 14, 2016 to provide more information. Details will be made available on the ARM <http://cms.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/initiative/index.html> and on the NSPIRES <https://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/>web pages.

Timothy D. Swindle
Professor, Planetary Sciences and Geosciences Department Head and Director Department of Planetary Sciences and Lunar and Planetary Laboratory Director, Arizona Space Grant Consortium Chair, NASA Small Bodies Assessment Group University of Arizona Tucson AZ 85721-0092
Phone: 520-621-4128