B--NASA CENTENNIAL CHALLENGES ANNOUNCEMENT OF PARTNERSHIP OPPORTUNITY

NASA seeks to identify potential partner organizations for various prize competitions to be conducted under Centennial Challenges (www.centennialchallenges.nasa.gov) within the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (www.exploration.nasa.gov) of NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Partner organizations will have the opportunity to contribute cash or non-monetary resources towards one or more prize competitions (or Challenges) that support the Vision for Space Exploration and ongoing NASA programs. In exchange, NASA expects that individual Challenges will demonstrate technologies or operational capabilities, and produce highly visible competition events of interest to the partnering organizations. Partner organizations may provide inputs to the structure and rules of the Challenges to which they contribute. Partner organizations may include but are not limited to: for-profit companies, universities and other non-profit or educational organizations, and professional or public organizations associated with space or aeronautics. Partner organizations cannot compete for the Challenges to which they contribute. All Challenges are still in the formulation stage, and no final decision has been made on whether or not to initiate the Challenges described in this Announcement of Partnership Opportunity. Decisions to issue specific Challenges and their rules will be determined at later dates. In some cases, these decisions are pending Congressional authorization for NASA to conduct large prize competitions. CENTENNIAL CHALLENGES BACKGROUND NASA Centennial Challenges was established to conduct prize competitions in support of the Vision for Space Exploration and ongoing NASA programs. Centennial Challenges is modeled on past and ongoing prize competitions, including the 18th century British Longitude Prize; early 20th century aviation competitions, such as the Orteig Prize won by Charles Lindbergh; the ongoing Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge; and the recently won, privately funded, Ansari X PRIZE. By making awards based on actual achievements instead of proposals, Centennial Challenges seeks novel and lower-cost solutions to engineering obstacles in civil space and aeronautics from new sources of innovation in industry, academia, and the public. TYPES OF PARTNERSHIPS NASA anticipates two types of Challenge partners: Co-Sponsor Organizations and Allied Organizations. Co-Sponsor Organizations Co-Sponsor Organizations are those Challenge partners that contribute cash towards the prize purse for one or more Challenges. In return for their cash contribution, the Co-Sponsor Organization would be associated with the specific Challenge, and/or the rules of the competition may require the winning contestant to grant certain rights to intellectual property or capabilities produced in the course of the competition to the Co-Sponsor Organization and /or the Government. The specific details of Co-Sponsor arrangements will be determined through the Partner Selection Process and the specific agreement to be negotiated with the selected partner described below. Co-Sponsor Organizations cannot compete in the Challenges to which they contribute. Allied Organizations Allied Organizations are those Challenge partners that provide in-kind services, in addition to those that NASA will provide, to enhance the competition. The specific details of these arrangements will be determined through the Partner Selection Process and the specific agreement to be negotiated with the selected partner described below. Allied Organizations cannot compete in the Challenges for which they are partners. TYPES OF CHALLENGES NASA plans four categories of prize competitions under Centennial Challenges. This Announcement of Partnership Opportunity seeks to identify prospective partners for Flagship Challenges, Keystone Challenges, and Alliance Challenges, each of which is described in greater detail below. The fourth category of prize competitions, Quest Challenges, is intended to complement other Challenge categories by promoting science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) awareness, subjects, and careers to youth and to other age groups who are not involved in STEM careers. The category of Quest Challenges is not covered in this announcement. Individual Challenges will take one of two forms: 1) "first-to-demonstrate competitions", like the Longitude Prize, Orteig Prize, and Ansari X PRIZE; and 2) "repeatable contests", like the DARPA Grand Challenge. It is important to differentiate between these types of Challenges because each will make different demands on Challenge partners. Flagship Challenges Flagship Challenges are intended to encourage external teams to independently design, develop, launch, and operate space missions and thereby generate innovative and/or low-cost approaches to various civil space goals that would not otherwise be pursued. It is envisioned that all Flagship Challenges will be "first-to-demonstrate" competitions and will offer cash purses ranging from millions to tens of millions of dollars to the winners of individual competitions. NASA intends to pursue this type of challenge once Congress has provided the necessary authority. Flagship Challenges will be open to competitors from private sector companies, non-profit research institutions, university researchers, student teams, hobbyists, and any combination thereof. Examples of Flagship-type prize competitions include the Orteig Prize and the X PRIZE. Candidate Flagship Challenges for which NASA is seeking Co-Sponsor Organizations include, but are not limited to, prize competitions for: - A soft robotic lunar landing, - A micro reentry vehicle, - An aero-assist demonstration, and - A station-keeping solar sail. NASA's Centennial challenges program has established a link on the NASA Exploration Systems website (exploration.nasa.gov/centennialchallenge/cc_submit.html) for submission of challenge ideas; ideas for future challenges may be submitted by sending an email to contact@example.gov. Keystone Challenges Keystone Challenges are intended to encourage the development and demonstration of advanced technologies and/or innovative capabilities that support NASA's mission areas, and, where possible, have strong synergy with other applications. Keystone Challenges may be component-, subsystem-, or system-level demonstrations, and may involve robotic contests, drop tests, and/or atmospheric flight tests. Depending on the technical goal, Keystone Challenges may take the form of "first-to-demonstrate competitions" or "repeatable contests", and will offer cash purses ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to the winners of individual Challenges. NASA intends to pursue those Keystone Challenges with large prize purses once Congress has provided the necessary authority. Keystone Challenges will also be open to private sector companies, non-profit research institutions, university researchers, student teams, hobbyists, and any combination thereof. The Longitude Prize and the DARPA Grand Challenge are two examples of Keystone-type prize competitions. Candidate Keystone Challenges for which NASA is seeking Co-Sponsor Organizations include, but are not limited to: "First-to-demonstrate competitions" for: - Lightweight radiation shielding, - A mobile power storage breakthrough, - Improved and new physical and chemical lunar resource processing techniques, - An advanced astronaut glove, - An autonomous drill, - An autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for cargo, - A long-duration, station-keeping UAV, and - A hybrid airship. "Repeatable contests" for: - Advances in materials, especially nanotube tethers; - Advances in lightweight power transmission, especially beamed power; - Advances in deployable telescope technology, especially those that could be applicable to space-based observatories; - Advances in general aviation technologies, especially those applicable to other modes of air transport; - A precision landing system; - An advanced tele-robotic construction system; - Highly mobile and cooperative autonomous robots; and - A human lunar all-terrain vehicle. As noted above, NASA's Centennial challenges program has established a link on the NASA Exploration Systems website (exploration.nasa.gov/centennialchallenge/cc_submit.html) for submission of challenge ideas; ideas for future challenges may be submitted by sending an email to contact@example.gov. Alliance Challenges An Alliance Challenge is identical to a Keystone Challenge, except that the prize is administered by an Allied Organization (see above), at no or little cost to NASA, in exchange for the opportunity to be associated with the prize competition. Alliance Challenges are designed to leverage the capabilities of various non-profit organizations with domain expertise and/or members in the organization to administer a Challenge competition at no cost to NASA. Candidate Alliance Challenges for which NASA is seeking partners include any and all of the Keystone Challenges described above. PARTNERSHIP SELECTION PROCESS NASA will select Challenge Partners based on the following evaluation criteria: - Ability of the prospective partner organization to substantially contribute to one or more Challenges; - Ability of the prospective partner organization to recuse itself from competition in the Challenge(s) in which it wishes to partner; and - Potential for the prospective partner organization's mission, vision, and values to complement NASA's vision, mission, and values; and - Prospective partner's experience and demonstrated ability to conduct highly visible competitive events. Using the specific evaluation criteria, NASA will select the Challenge Partner(s) for Co-Sponsor Organizations and Allied Organizations who best demonstrate the ability to further NASA's Vision for Space Exploration. NASA and a prospective Challenge partner may ultimately negotiate a Space Act Agreement (SAA) to define the terms of the cooperation. The SAA will detail the contributions and responsibilities of NASA and the partner organization for a specific Challenge. The agreement will also address other important aspects of the Challenge, such as Challenge rules, media rights and intellectual property rights. For those challenges where Congressional authority will be required, NASA and a prospective challenge partner may enter into a preliminary Space Act agreement to initiate cooperation and negotiate in good faith towards a comprehensive Space Act agreement to be executed once existing restrictions, such as the requirement for Congressional authority, are removed. SUBMISSION DETAILS Responses to this Announcement of Partnership Opportunity should be no more than five pages in length and: Briefly describe your organization; - Identify the Challenge(s) in which your organization wishes to partner with NASA (see lists above); - Identify the type of partnership your organization is seeking, either a Co-Sponsor partnership or an Alliance partnership (see descriptions above); - Describe your organization's reason(s) for wanting to partner on this Challenge(s); - In the case of prospective Co-Sponsor partnerships, include an estimate of the amount of cash funding your organization would be interested in contributing to the prize purse(s) for this Challenge(s); and - In the case of prospective Alliance partnerships, describe the prize competition administration capabilities that your organization could bring to bear on this Challenge(s). Duration This Announcement of Partnership Opportunity will remain continuously open to provide future opportunities to expand the number of Challenge partnerships. NASA plans to update this Announcement of Partnership Opportunity at regular intervals to reflect changes in Centennial Challenges planning. NASA will begin evaluating submissions to this Announcement of Partnership Opportunity starting four weeks from this posting date. Depending on the number of submissions received for specific Challenges, NASA may close some Challenges to submissions starting on that date. Submissions received after that date for a Challenge that has been closed will be returned to the sender without review. Contact Information Submissions in response to this Announcement of Partnership Opportunity should be made electronically in the body of or as an attachment to an email sent to contact@example.gov. Questions regarding this Announcement of Partnership Opportunity should be directed to: