7 Companies Chosen for $476M Expanded NASA Earth Observation Data Acquisition Effort

NASA has selected seven vendors that will compete for task orders under the expanded Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program procurement effort.

The vendors were chosen based on the technical acceptability of their proposals and the reasonableness of their proposed contract prices relative to their commercial pricing, Kevin Murphy, the chief science data officer at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement issued Sept. 18.

The selected vendors are:

• Airbus DS Geo
• Capella Space
• GHGSat
• PlanetiQ
• Maxar Intelligence
• Spire Global Subsidiary Inc.
• Umbra Lab

The CSDA Program was launched in 2017 as a pilot, according to SpaceNews. Under the expanded version of the program, vendors will compete for firm fixed price task orders to provide Earth observation data and related services to complement NASA’s and the U.S. government’s observation capabilities and support Earth science research and other applications.

The CSDA Program itself will result in an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract vehicle with a five-year ordering period with a maximum cumulative ordering value of $476 million.