NASA and ESA want to obtain innovative technologies from small private-sector companies and entrepreneurs
Space organisations are moving to engage entrepreneurial and non-traditional companies in a bid to gain access to innovative commercial technologies. NASA plans to create a venture-capital fund to sponsor new technologies, while the European Space Agency has launched an initiative aimed at fostering the participation of smaller companies in space technology programmes.
NASA's Mercury Fund plans to join with established private-sector venture capital firms to invest in young, privately held companies working on nanotechnology, robotics, intelligent systems and high-speed networks. The concept is similar to the US Central Intelligence Agency's government-backed venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel, which has taken strategic stakes in some 67 firms since being created in 1999.
ESA, meanwhile, has issued an invitation to tender aimed specifically at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), particularly those not yet involved in space programmes. The agency is looking for innovations by companies active in fields other than space that can be used in renewing its technology base.
Under the Leading Edge Technology for SMEs programme, smaller firms will carry out feasibility studies or preliminary validations to demonstrate application of their technologies to space programmes. ESA has invited proposals in areas including design and engineering tools, inflatable structures, small electric thrusters and "green" rocket engines. ESA plans to award multiple 18-month, €50,000-200,000 ($60,000-$240,000) contracts.
Under pressure to give the private sector a role in its space exploration programme, NASA has included several smaller companies among those awarded contracts to study preliminary concepts for human lunar missions. One of these, Transformational Space (t/Space), is proposing that private industry builds and owns the lunar infrastructure and NASA buys services to support its explorers.
The t/Space team includes Scaled Composites, developer of the SpaceShipOne private-venture suborbital vehicle, and AirLaunch, which is designing a low-cost, air-dropped Quickreach launch vehicle. The two companies will collaborate on designing a crew exploration vehicle that can be developed affordably by private industry. Another team member is Constellation Services International, which is developing the LEO Express concept for low-cost cargo resupply and satellite servicing.
GRAHAM WARWICK / WASHINGTON DC
Source: Flight International
