Seven Companies Named to NASA Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Contract

Seven companies have won spots on a potential 66-month, $476 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity NASA contract to deliver Earth observation data and related services.

The Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition program is meant to support Earth science research and application efforts, NASA said Monday. It is intended to be a cost-effective way to complement observations collected by the government and international partners.

Selected for the effort were Airbus DS Geo, Capella Space Group, GHGSat, Maxar Intelligence, Space Sciences and Engineering, Spire Global and Umbra Lab.

In the CSDA solicitation, NASA specified that it seeks to receive datasets, associated metadata, data usage policy and area coverage.

The agency included an on-ramp for new vendors to compete and propose other data products.

According to NASA, it will prioritize data from private satellite constellations, which can provide higher-resolution imagery more frequently. The agency noted that it will require end-user license agreements to allow commercial data to be widely shared.