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.

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.

The NASA TechLeap Prize challenges are open competitions designed to discover promising technologies for space exploration, discovery, and the expansion of space commerce. The NASA TechLeap Prize is committed to fostering an inclusive and accessible environment for all participants. NASA encourages participation from individuals, teams, and organizations who may not have previously engaged in other NASA funding opportunities as well as from those who demonstrate commitment to the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

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.

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 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.

Please email us if you need help determining your eligibility.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

While the Technology Title and Technology Overview from the winning applications may be published on this website and/or the NASA website, 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.

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 the inclusion of any confidential and/or sensitive information.

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.

NOTE: 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.

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. The inclusion of the budget in the proposal is to determine if the proposed project plan and budget are reasonable.

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).

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.

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.

You can find technologies previously selected for flight testing through NASA’s Flight Opportunities program here. Many PIs 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.

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 diversity 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. Learn more about our contracted flight providers.

Browser. We find our platform works best using Chrome on a desktop or laptop computer. Download Chrome. If you experience any difficulties accessing the platform, please use incognito mode in Chrome and clear your cache and cookies. If you continue to have technical issues, email us.

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. 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.

The NASA TechLeap Prize is committed to fostering an inclusive and accessible environment for all participants. If you require an accommodation to fully engage in the application process or webinars, contact us. We are committed to proactively addressing accessibility, and we encourage you to share any needs so we can support your participation. Together, we can make this a welcoming and enriching experience for everyone.

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