NASA Awards New Spacecraft Avionics Development Contract

NASA has selected Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc. of Cambridge, Massachusetts, to provide development and operations support for the avionics software suite that will guide the agency’s next generation of human rated spacecraft on missions beyond low-Earth orbit.

The $49 million Advanced Guidance, Navigation and Control (GN&C) and Avionics Technology Development and Analysis III contract is a single-award indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. The five-year performance period begins Tuesday, June 1, and extends through May 31, 2026.

The contract will support the work of the Engineering Directorate’s Aeroscience and Flight Mechanics Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The contract provides support services that include a full range of guidance, navigation and control tools, integrated avionics, and autonomous flight operations systems. These will be used to develop simulation tools and flight software, perform flight-mode-specific analysis, define system architecture, execute test and verification activities, and provide sustaining engineering for the International Space Station and Orion spacecraft. The contract may support other NASA centers’ needs for advanced guidance products and services in the future.

The majority of the work will take place at contractor facilities in Texas, near Johnson. Services also may be required at other NASA centers, contractor or subcontractor locations, or vendor facilities as requirements warrant.