As a next step for its $250 million Lunar Exploration Accelerator Program (LEAP), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has issued an Invitation to Qualify (ITQ) notice. The invitation is open until October 29, 2021.
The LEAP program was announced in February 2019 with the purpose to “help Canadian businesses and academic institutions use and test new technologies in lunar orbit and on the surface of the Moon in the fields of health, artificial intelligence, and robotics.”
According to the CSA, this ITQ “forms part of the Qualification Phase, which is the first phase of a multi-phase procurement process detailed in Section 2.1 by Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC), on behalf of Canadian Space Agency (CSA), for Phases A through F of the Lunar Exploration Accelerator Program (LEAP) Science Instrument project.”
“The CSA has elected to participate in National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon (PRISM) ROSES-2021 F.10 PRISM call for potential lunar surface investigations in support of the science instrument project element of the LEAP portfolio. For more information on this program element, industry and academia can refer to the final text posted on the NASA Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System (NSPIRES) page for ROSES-2021 F.10 PRISM.”
“The PRISM solicitation call, pertaining to this ITQ, will be led by NASA and was issued by NASA in September 2021 for launches in 2025 and early 2026. Under this PRISM solicitation call, NASA intends to select science instrument suites for two commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) deliveries, one expected to be at a South Polar location between Q4 2025 – early Q1 2026, and the other at the Gruithuisen Domes, a nearside silicic volcanic construct, between Q1-Q2 2025. Mobility capabilities are expected to be available for Gruithuisen Domes.”
“The work related to the Canadian science instrument includes Phases A through F for a typical space mission relevant to PRISM. The objective of the Phase A work will be to demonstrate and confirm the feasibility, value and benefits of the instrument for a space mission to the Moon, and to demonstrate the validity of the mission requirements as well as the development of the system requirements. Phases B, C, and D will be the preliminary, detailed and implementation phases respectively of the instrument project, whereas Phase E will be the operations phase and Phase F the closeout phase.”
The anticipated maximum funding available for both missions is $16.9M Canadian Dollars (CAD), Applicable Taxes extra, with $5.6M CAD, Applicable Taxes extra, for the South Polar mission and $11.3M CAD, Applicable Taxes extra, for the Gruithuisen Domes mission. As a result of the anticipated maximum funding available for both missions, the total investigation costs will also be required to include an option(s) to descope the work for the South Polar delivery location of up to $2.8M CAD, Applicable Taxes extra, and for the Gruithuisen Domes delivery location of up to $5.5M CAD, Applicable Taxes extra.”
