FAQs

To support future missions and reduce risk, NASA created the TechLeap Prize to rapidly identify, develop, and flight test technologies of significant interest through a series of challenges. Participants in these challenges submit an application to develop a specific technology, competing for awards to build a payload for flight. As an added incentive, NASA intends to provide a flight test to the winners of each challenge who successfully complete Payload Builds Round 1 and Round 2.

The Space Technology Payload Challenge is the fourth NASA TechLeap Prize competition.

This challenge is seeking solutions from eligible individuals, teams, and organizations who can develop a flight-ready payload that addresses one or more of NASA’s technology shortfalls.

In April 2024, NASA published a document describing 187 shortfalls — that is, technology areas requiring further development to meet future exploration, science, and other mission needs. NASA asked the aerospace community to rate their importance. The effort led by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) aims to better integrate the community’s most pervasive technical problems to help guide its space technology development and investments. The Space Technology Payload Challenge focuses on a selected set of shortfalls that have a high likelihood of a flight test accelerating their technology development.  

Refer to the Technical Guidelines for additional details on the selected shortfalls and topic areas for the Space Technology Payload Challenge.

Please email us your questions, and a member of the NASA TechLeap Prize team will respond as quickly as possible during regular business hours. Registrants can also post to Forums after logging in to the platform, and review recordings of past Q&A webinars available on News & Updates.

Once you have registered, we will send important notifications throughout the competition to the email address associated with your account, as well as the primary and secondary contacts listed on your registration form. There are three steps you can take to make sure these messages are received promptly:

1. Add our email address to your contacts.
2. Whitelist our email address. Here are instructions to add to your whitelist in most major email providers.
3. Update your registration form right away if one of your contacts changes. If you need to make a contact change after the application window has closed, please email us, and we will assist you.

You may also sign up for the Flight Opportunities newsletter to receive announcements and information on upcoming opportunities.

TechLeap is not offered on a specific schedule. You may look at previous TechLeap schedules to get an idea of rough cadence. Please note there is no guarantee for future timely opportunities.

The NASA TechLeap Prize challenges are open competitions designed to discover promising technologies for space exploration, discovery, and the expansion of space commerce. NASA encourages participation from individuals, teams, and organizations who may not have previously engaged in other NASA funding opportunities.

NASA welcomes applications from individuals, teams, and organizations or entities that have a recognized legal existence and structure under applicable law (state, federal, or country) and that are in good standing in the jurisdiction under which they are organized with the following restrictions:

1. Individuals must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents of the United States and be 18 years of age or older.
2. Organizations must be an entity incorporated in and maintaining a primary place of business in the United States.
3. Teams must be composed of otherwise eligible individuals or organizations and led by a U.S. citizen or permanent resident of the United States who is 18 years of age or older.

For-profit and nonprofit organizations may apply provided that they meet eligibility requirements, including having a primary place of business in the U.S. Applicants may partner with other organizations on their application but all applicants must meet the eligibility rules.

Refer to the Rules for a complete set of eligibility requirements.

Foreign citizens may only participate as (i) employees of an otherwise eligible U.S. entity who reside in the U.S., (ii) full-time students at an otherwise eligible U.S. university or college who reside in the U.S., or (iii) owners of less than 50% of the interests in an otherwise eligible U.S. entity who reside in the U.S. 

Refer to the Rules for a complete set of eligibility requirements.

If you are a past grantee of the SBIR program, you may submit a proposed technology. If you or your employer is receiving U.S. government funding for similar projects in which you are developing a flight-ready payload addressing your selected technology shortfall(s), you or your employer are not eligible for an award under this challenge. In other words, applicants cannot receive U.S. government funding for the same scope of work more than once. Enhancements, improvements, and other similar activities for the previously funded technology could be eligible for this challenge.

Please contact us if you need help determining your eligibility.

If you or your employer is a contractor receiving U.S. government funding for a project to specifically address the proposed shortfall(s) selected for this challenge, you or your employer may not be eligible for an award.

Additionally, the U.S. government may have intellectual property rights to your solution if your solution was made under a government contract, grant, or cooperative agreement. Under such conditions, you might not be eligible for award.

Employees and contractors of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory are not eligible to win an award.  

Per the Rules: U.S. government employees may participate as an applicant so long as they are not acting within the scope of their position, rely on no facilities, access, personnel, knowledge, or other resources that are available to them as a result of their employment except for those resources made available to all other participants on an equal basis.

U.S. government employees participating as individuals, or who submit applications on behalf of an otherwise eligible organization, will be responsible for ensuring that their participation in the Competition is permitted by the rules and regulations relevant to their position and that they have obtained any authorization that may be required by virtue of their government position. Failure to do so may result in the disqualification of them individually or of the entity which they represent or in which they are involved.

Please email us if you need help determining your eligibility.

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FFRDC employees may participate so long as they are not acting within the scope of their position, rely on no facilities, access, personnel, knowledge, or other resources that are available to them as a result of their employment except for those resources made available to all other participants on an equal basis.

Note: Federal entities or federal employees acting within the scope of their employment are not eligible to win an award. If you or your employer is receiving U.S. government funding for a project to specifically address the proposed shortfall(s) selected for this challenge via flight test, you or your employer may not be eligible for award. The key is that applicants cannot receive funding for the same work twice. See the Rules for eligibility information.

Additionally, the U.S. government may have intellectual property rights to your solution if your solution was made under a government contract, grant, or cooperative agreement. Under such conditions, you may not be eligible for award.

Please contact us if you need help determining your eligibility.  

Any entity needs to ensure that they are legally eligible to participate. If flight providers determine that they are eligible to participate, we would encourage them to do so. The key is that applicants cannot receive funding for the same work twice. See the Rules for eligibility information.

Each eligible lead participant may submit one application (see Section 2 of the Rules). A lead participant may serve as a partner on an application led by another eligible lead participant provided that each application proposes a separate and distinct solution.

Regional or location-specific branches of larger organizations, as well as departments, schools, and nonprofits within or based in a college/university, can each register and submit separately as the lead participant on one application provided that each of the proposed solutions is separate and distinct.

If an organization is the lead participant, there should be minimal overlap in team members. The intent of the policy is to ensure that any team is concentrating their best effort into a single application. We encourage teams to select a single approach that best represents your ability to deliver a solution that meets the timeline, technical guidelines, and scoring criteria.

We leave it up to each participant to select the team structure that works best for you. Please review the scoring rubric to learn more about how we define a strong proposal – this is the same tool reviewers will use to evaluate their assigned submissions.

Applicants will be asked to provide the estimated technology readiness level for the technology proposed. Typically teams have a working benchtop model or prototype at the time of application. This enables them to develop a payload within the period of the competition.

If your technology can be matured, de-risked or otherwise benefit from flight testing regardless of TRL, you are encouraged to apply.

Please also review our scoring rubric to learn more about how we define a strong proposal.

You can find technologies previously selected for flight testing through NASA’s Flight Opportunities program here. Many PIs and teams are willing to talk about their experiences with potential applicants. You can also find more information and listen to recorded webinar sessions with PIs on the Flight Opportunities Community of Practice web page.

Under Technical Guidelines, please see the links to more information about each of the Civil Space shortfalls (also scroll down to the Shortfalls section here). To learn more about metrics and how submission will be evaluated, please refer to the scoring rubric.

The priority order of the shortfalls included on the NASA TechPort site is not an evaluation factor. Applications will be evaluated using the scoring rubric.  

This challenge addresses a subset of shortfalls, particularly those that are both considered by the community to be most pressing and are also well-suited for a flight test to have a significant impact on the advancement of technologies that may address the shortfall.

Participants are encouraged to focus on one primary shortfall – any additional shortfalls are not required and should be selected only if applicable to the proposed technology.  

As part of the application process for this challenge, participants must select at least one shortfall to address through the proposed technology. There is also the opportunity to select up to two additional shortfalls that may be addressed on the application form.  

The shortfalls selected for this upcoming challenge are derived from the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) civil space shortfall list and NASA’s Commercially Enabled Rapid Space Science Initiative (CERISS) program needs. The full list is available on NASA’s Techport page and is linked to from our Technical Guidelines.  

Refer to the scoring rubric to learn more about how a strong proposal is defined.  

Yes, it is expected that only one CERISS-relevant application will be selected.

This challenge does not constrain the size or mass of the payloads because solutions to the shortfalls included in this challenge may vary greatly. However, NASA does intend to use its contracted providers for suborbital and hosted orbital flights, so applicants may want to familiarize themselves with the capabilities of these providers – these are available in the payload users' guides on the Flight Opportunities website.

To participate in the Space Technology Payload Challenge, you must first register no later than 5:00 PM Eastern on Tuesday, March 4, 2025. Registration is a simple two-step process. First, create a username and password, then check your email inbox to confirm your registration. Next, complete the online registration form. Once you are registered, applications are due no later than 5:00 PM Eastern on Thursday, March 20, 2025.

Please review the application to better understand the submission requirements, as well as the scoring rubric to learn more about what constitutes a strong application.

It is up to each participant to determine an appropriate budget for the proposed solution, and prize funds can be used however the winners see fit. You may include any cost categories, including contingencies for risk mitigation, that support the development of your technology. You are welcome to organize this by phases and include costs after the challenge is complete.

Although the award amount is up to $500,000, the amount provided in this budget may be more than, less than, or equal to that value. Including the budget in the proposal is to determine if the proposed project plan and budget are reasonable.

NASA intends to provide an opportunity to flight test at no additional cost to winners, so the budget should exclude NASA’s costs for flight test. Please keep in mind, however, that NASA's cost for the challenge is limited, and flight tests that are deemed too expensive may not be feasible as a challenge winner. Please see previous Flight Opportunity prizes and challenges for examples of payloads flown in the past.

It is a requirement that the liability insurance be current and valid from the date of submission through the completion of the flight test (currently, estimated to be December 31, 2026). Note that we are not able to confirm that you meet the insurance requirement at this time. Please do not send us your insurance information by email.

A standard annual policy should be sufficient, and it is required that all individuals that plan on participating need to be named under the insurance if they are not part of the larger insured organization. NASA and Carrot should also be named per the guidelines.

Universities likely already have existing liability insurance, which may be able to be modified to meet the needs of this challenge.

You do not need to submit your liability insurance at the time of application submission. If you are named as a preliminary challenge winner, you will be asked to submit your proof of insurance and other eligibility requirement documentation at that time. We expect it should only take a few days after preliminary winners have been identified to submit the required paperwork. All paperwork must be submitted and verified before challenge winners are named.

Please do familiarize yourself with the requirements and ensure that you meet them prior to submission. Insurance Guidelines can be found under Section F. Information for Winners on the application and more information can be found in the Terms & Conditions under Section 11.3.

Also note that if you are not able to meet the insurance requirement, this means that unfortunately, you are not eligible to participate.  

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The video is an opportunity to share your vision and approach in a way that is different from the written proposal format. You may include screenshots, walk-throughs, or other visuals of your solution if you wish. This DOES NOT need to be a professionally produced video – a video shot on a smartphone is acceptable.  

NOTE: Please set the video to Public or Unlisted until awards are announced for this challenge. Only those with the URL will be able to view the video, such as the NASA TechLeap Prize team, Evaluation Panel, and Selection Committee.

We have not published previously submitted 90-second videos, nor do we have any samples at this time. We encourage you to refer to the guidelines listed on the application for creating your video and do your best to abide by the requirements. We may consider posting a sample video for future challenges.

While we cannot accept any mailed materials at this time, there is opportunity to upload a 90-second video and a five-page PDF to the online application. See Section B. Video Pitch and Visual Representation under Section C. The Technology for more information.

Note: Only the information submitted through your online application form will be considered by the Evaluation Panel and NASA TechLeap Prize Team.

The Timeline has more information on when you can expect each phase to occur. We expect to select up to nine winners by the end of July 2025 who will each receive an initial award of $200,000. 

There will be three types of evaluation. During Evaluation Panel review, each valid application will receive scores and comments from a highly qualified panel of expert judges who will use a scoring rubric to evaluate their assigned applications. Potential biases in Evaluation Panel review are addressed through our training, which includes unconscious bias training for each member of the Evaluation Panel. All scores are normalized to ensure fairness for everyone.  

The Selection Committee judges will review top-scoring submissions and select up to nine winners based on the resulting rank order from the Evaluation Panel, scoring rubric, and variety of solutions. Winners will each receive an initial award of $200,000, with the chance to win a total of up to $500,000 each and the opportunity for a flight test of their payload.  

Winners will have the opportunity to win additional awards of $200,000 each for successful completion of Payload Build Round 1 and $100,000 each for successful completion of Payload Build Round 2. Field Judges will conduct site visits in November 2025 and April 2026 to score the progress each winner has made (dates are subject to change and will be provided to winners at the start of the Payload Build phase).

NASA also intends to provide the opportunity for a flight test to each of the winners.

NASA intends to secure flight tests for each of the winners at no cost to the winners and flight providers are selected after Payload Build Round 2 is complete. Learn more about our contracted flight providers and familiarize yourselves with the capabilities of these providers which are outlined in the Payload Users' Guides (PUGs) from the flight providers. You may also reach out to the flight providers with specific questions about their capabilities, and learn more about previous Flight Opportunity prizes and challenges for examples of payloads flown in the past.

There are no predefined flight profiles as part of the challenge. It is up to TechLeap participants to define flight profiles that are within the capabilities of the flight providers. Applicants can include a specific orbit as part of the description of their desired flight test. If selected as a winner, NASA will attempt to procure a flight that addresses the requirements for the payload flight test; however, the ability to meet specific requirements cannot be guaranteed given availability of commercial offerings. In some cases, a shift in flight provider may be allowed for extenuating circumstances.

Please describe the test environment needed to demonstrate the technology you are seeking to mature. It should be apparent in the application which flight profiles will be relevant to your testing needs.

Please also recognize that NASA’s flight-test budget for this challenge is limited, so only one flight test per winner is planned at this time and flight tests that are deemed too expensive may not be feasible as a challenge winner.

Note that one of the scoring rubric traits is focused on Flight Benefit. If the flight does not substantially advance the technology, it will not score as well.

Post-challenge activities will largely depend on the solutions that are brought forth as part of the challenge. There are many different paths that this could take, and NASA is excited to work with the participants and the broader community to take advantage of the outcomes of this competition and seek opportunities for future impact.    

Potential options for follow-on activities might include commercial products, new standards, open-source opportunities, etc.

Plans for future flights where funding is not being received from a government agency or features a technology different than that in the TechLeap application does not impact your ability to submit an application to this challenge. You may reference this planned flight in your application.

Please note that this a prize competition and not a grant, so prize funds will be distributed directly to the winner and may be used however the winner sees fit, provided that eligibility requirements are met throughout all phases.

Funding will be awarded and winners will move on to the next phases of the competition as outlined under Scoring Process. We expect to notify winners by the end of July 2025 and flight tests to occur in the Summer of 2026. To participate in the flight test opportunity, a space act agreement will be executed with each winner. This agreement will lay out the responsibilities of each party, but it does not cover any exchange of funds – again, this is handled via a prize distribution directly to the winner.

The NASA TechLeap Prize offers a single application round that will be used to evaluate and select winners. Winners participate in monthly conference calls to present their plans and updates for payload development and progress to date.

Evaluation for Payload Build Round 1 is scheduled for November 2025 with the opportunity to win an additional award of $200,000. Field judges will conduct a virtual or on-site visit to score the progress each winner has made.    

Winners with a score of at least 80 points out of 100 will move on to Payload Build Round 2. Regular check-in calls will continue then evaluation for Payload Build Round 2 is scheduled for April 2026 with the opportunity to win an additional award of $100,000 and a flight test in the summer of 2026.  

Note this timeline is subject to change and final due dates will be shared with winners. The Timeline has more information on when you can expect each phase to occur. We expect to select up to nine winners by the end of July 2025 who will each receive an initial award of $200,000.

While changes will not be accepted from applicants after the submission deadline, there will be opportunity for winners of the challenge to share any key updates and changes to their proposed technology.

Reminder: TechLeap Prize awards are not grants. While winners can use prize funds as they see fit, NASA may review high-level budgets during the payload build rounds to help confirm the payload is on track.

Yes, winners will be responsible for bringing their payloads into compliance for flight test, as defined by the commercial flight provider.

These are prize funds – not a grant – and it is up to each winning team to monitor prize funds in a way that they see fit. There are additional rounds of the challenge, so if a winner does not score at least 80 points as part of Payload Build Round 1, they are not likely to proceed to the next round and future prize dollars are at risk. If that should happen, any previously received prize funding will not need to be returned to NASA.

The timelines provided in the application and on the website are estimates. Final schedules will be agreed upon with the winners. One goal of this challenge is to increase the pace of space so we anticipate that build phases will be relatively quick. The intention is that payload teams are able to build a payload within an approximately eight-month timeline, understanding that flights tests might not be available immediately at the end of the payload build phase.

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Registration confirmation. Once you have completed the registration form, you will be able to submit the form then view a confirmation that your registration is received. You have the option to request an automated confirmation email after clicking “submit.” Be sure to click the checkbox opting into this email when the confirmation message appears. Once registration is complete, you should be able to access Forums and the application form on the platform.

Application confirmation. The application saves automatically as you respond in the platform. Once you submit your application, a similar confirmation message will appear. If you would like to receive an automated confirmation email, please click the checkbox opting into this email when the confirmation message appears. 

Language requirement. Your application must be in English. This helps to provide consistency across all entries during our review process and reduces the risk of misinterpretation or translation errors. It is fine to leave organization names and other items that have no direct translation in the original language. The video may be in another language if subtitled in English.

Deadlines. We understand many applicants work on their applications outside of the platform. We strongly encourage applicants to begin completing the application online at least one week ahead of the deadline to allow enough time to enter all the responses and attachments. Our deadlines our firm and will not be extended to help ensure fairness for all our applicants.

No need to anonymize elements of your proposal. We leave it up to participants to decide what information to include in their submissions. As you respond to this application, please include as much information as possible for the Evaluation Panel to score and evaluate your proposed technology. While the NASA TechLeap Prize team and evaluators have nondisclosure agreements in place, you may avoid including any confidential and/or sensitive information.

As a reminder, the following portions of winning applications may be published online and may be shared with the general public to promote your proposal or to highlight results: Lead Organization, Technology Title, and Technology Overview. Winners will work with the NASA TechLeap Team to confirm any additional sharing of information.

The ownership and use of intellectual property arising from this competition remains with you. NASA may choose to negotiate for a license to use the solutions developed as a result of this competition.  

Also, NASA is interested in learning about where your technology ends up.

Please also note the competition website is not approved to handle Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) or Export Controlled Information (ECI).

Please indicate in your application which components are off-the-shelf technology. For items such as laptops and VR goggles, there are no special intellectual property requirements to document. However, if you have modified any specific off-the-shelf technology as part of your submission, please detail the agreements or permissions you have in place to modify those technologies.

We do not anticipate any impact to the review and evaluation process for TechLeap. Applications are evaluated by the Evaluation Panel using the scoring rubric as planned.

Once registered, you’ll have access to our Forums on the platform where registrants can view FAQs, post questions, and communicate with one another. This FAQ page will also be updated throughout the process so please check back, and you can email us with further questions or technical support requests.

Each team should submit an application through one registered account, but these login credentials may be shared with team members for you to access the platform and collaborate as you need.

Here is a text-only version of the application if you prefer to add the prompts to a collaborative working document on platforms like Sharepoint, Dropbox, Google Drive and so forth.

While working collaboratively off-platform is expected, be sure to allow ample time to transfer your responses and complete the online submission on Carrot’s platform no later than 5:00 PM Eastern Time on Thursday, March 20, 2025. Our deadlines are firm and will not be extended.

NASA offers a range of funding opportunities. Please visit our website to see other ways to get involved, and to learn more about ongoing and future funding opportunities.