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Current launch to orbit vehicles, both expendable and reusable, require months of preparation for flight. Although there are available (in-production) practical propulsion options for such a vehicle, the costs for outfitting the booster stage are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. If reusable, additional months are required to verify all components and systems before re-flight. These costs severely limit what missions NASA can perform. The propulsion systems are a major focus during this time, yet aircraft engines are checked and certified for re-flight in less than an hour.

This subtopic seeks innovative solutions that will allow spaceport launch service providers to operate in an efficient, low cost manner and increases capabilities associated with integration, checkout, and preparations required to configure and ready space systems for launch. The goal is a set of technologies, processes, and strategic concepts that can be collectively used to facilitate launch vehicle processing by reducing complexity, turn-around times, and mission risk while implementing novel concepts for the processing of launch vehicles.

The objective of this subtopic is to dramatically reduce the cost of achieving low Earth orbit by advancing the technology required for spaceflight propellant tank development. The ability for launch vehicles to combine the significant weight savings of composite tanks and composite overwrap pressure vessels (COPVs) with airline like operations could be possible if these tanks are reusable, reliable, and need little to no maintenance between flights.

The aim of this subtopic is to develop new technologies to reduce cost and schedule, improve reliability and quality, and increase safety of Rocket Propulsion Testing. To this end, proposals for technology development will be accepted for any of the following four subject areas:

The Space Operations Mission Directorate (SOMD) provides mission critical space exploration services to both NASA customers and to other partners within the U.S. and throughout the world: from flying out the Space Shuttle, to assembling and operating the International Space Station; ensuring safe and reliable access to space; maintaining secure and dependable communications between platforms across the solar system; and ensuring the health and safety of our Nation's astronauts.

This subtopic seeks proposals to develop technologies that advance capabilities for space telepresence and mission operations situation awareness, fault diagnosis, isolation, and recovery onboard the ISS using an onboard free-flyer as a mobile sensor platform.

NASA is investigating the near- and mid-term development of highly-desirable systems and technologies that provide innovative ways either to leverage existing ISS facilities for new scientific payloads or, to provide on orbit analysis to enhance capabilities and reduce sample return requirements.

The focus of this subtopic is on technologies and techniques that may advance the state of the art of spacecraft systems by utilizing the International Space Station as a technology test bed. Successful proposals will address using the long duration, microgravity and extreme vacuum environment available on the ISS to demonstrate component or system characteristics that extend beyond the current state of the art by:

This subtopic seeks to create new and innovative technology solutions to improve safety and lower the life cycle costs of assembly, test, integration and processing of the ground and flight assets at our nation's spaceports and propulsion test facilities. The following areas are of particular interest: Control of Material Degradation

Digital motion imaging technologies provide great improvements over analog systems, but also present significant challenges. Digital High Definition Television (HDTV) cameras flown on the Shuttle and International Space Station have shown higher susceptibility to ionizing radiation damage, manifested by visible "dead" pixels in the image. In order to practically deploy HDTV cameras, sensors and processors need to survive operations on orbit for years without debilitating radiation damage that degrades image quality and performance.