$108,809,296
National Aeronautics and Space Administration·National Aeronautics and Space Administration
to CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
aerospaceactive
ACTION DATE—·SOURCEUSASPENDING·SOURCE IDCONT_AWD_80NM0018F0560_8000_80NM0018D0004_8000
Award description
PLANETARY SCIENCE PROGRAM SUPPORT 40-15961
Verbatim from USAspending.gov. Capitalization, abbreviations, and codes are unchanged.
The Buildout's read
What the model surfaced from this award
Confidence: high
In plain English
Funds planetary science research and program support at Caltech under NASA's planetary science initiative.
Sub-sectors
planetary-sciencespace-explorationresearch-institutions
Why this matters
Sustains U.S. leadership in planetary exploration, Mars missions, and deep-space science capabilities critical to long-term space dominance.
Supply-chain signal
Drives demand for specialized aerospace instrumentation, propulsion systems, and advanced materials from defense and space contractors.
U.S.–China competition angle
Planetary science and Mars exploration are key domains where U.S. seeks to maintain technological and scientific superiority over China's expanding space program.
Generated by award_classification v1.0.0 via claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 on 2026-05-14. Cost: $0.001351.
Period of performance
Start
2018-10-01
End
2027-09-26
Status
activein 500 days
Other awards from this recipient
- —MARS SAMPLE RETURN (MSR) PROGRAM - PHASE A 40-108270$1.6B
- —DEEP SPACE NETWORK (DSN) THE CONTRACT IS THE SPONSORING AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (NASA) AND THE CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (CONTRACTOR), A PRIVATE NONPROFIT EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION, WHICH ESTABLISHES THE RELATIONSHIP FOR THE OPERATION OF THE FEDERALLY FUNDED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTER (FFRDC) KNOWN AS THE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY. THE CONTRACTOR, JPL, IS REQUIRED TO PERFORM WORK THAT IS DESIGNATED IN TASK ORDERS ISSUED BY THE NASA MANAGEMENT OFFICE (NMO) CONTRACTING OFFICERS. NASA - SPONSORED WORK: JPL'S PRIMARY MISSION IS TO SUPPORT THE NASA SCIENCE MISSION DIRECTORATE (SMD) IN CARRYING OUT THE SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES IDENTIFIED IN THE SMD SCIENCE PLAN. THE FOUR BROAD SCIENTIFIC AREAS ARE: EARTH SCIENCE, PLANETARY SCIENCE, HELIOPHYSICS, AND ASTROPHYSICS. IN PERFORMANCE OF THIS CONTRACT, JPL SHALL: 1) SUPPLY A BROAD BASE OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL CAPABILITIES RELEVANT TO NASA PROGRAM AND PROJECT RESPONSIBILITIES AND ASSIGNMENTS. 2) FOSTER ITS UNIQUE RELATIONSHIP WITH A TOP-TIER UNIVERSITY TO FACILITATE THE INVOLVEMENT OF SCIENTISTS, ENGINEERS, AND STUDENTS FROM THE UNIVERSITY AND RESEARCH COMMUNITIES IN NASA MISSION AND IN SUPPORTING OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES. 3) SUPPORT NASA IN ENABLING PROGRAM AND INSTITUTIONAL CAPABILITIES. 4) DEVELOP SPACECRAFT AND INSTRUMENTS THAT ARE SENT TO VARIOUS DESTINATIONS WITH OUR SOLAR SYSTEM, INCLUDING EARTH ORBIT, PLANETS, PLANETARY SATELLITES, ASTEROIDS, AND COMETS. THESE MISSIONS MAY BE ORBITERS, LANDERS, OR ROVERS, AND TYPICALLY INCLUDE CUTTING-EDGE TECHNOLOGIES REQUIRED TO MEET SCIENTIFIC REQUIREMENTS. 5) PERFORM PROJECT TASKS INVOLVING: (I) AUTONOMOUS DEEP-SPACE, INNER-SPACE AND EARTH-ORBITING SPACECRAFT OR MAJOR SUBSYSTEMS, (II) EXPERIMENTS, INSTRUMENTS, OR OTHER DEVICES WHICH MAY BE CARRIED AS PAYLOAD ON SPACECRAFTS IN MISSIONS MANAGED BY OTHERS, AND/OR (III) GROUND-BASED SYSTEMS. 6) BEYOND ITS PRIMARY MISSION, JPL MAY PERFORM WORK FOR OTHER NASA MISSION DIRECTORATES OR OFFICES. 7) JPL IS ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR THE OPERATION, RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGY INSERTION, AND MANAGEMENT OF NASA S DEEP SPACE NETWORK TO PROVIDE TELECOMMUNICATION AND OPERATION SERVICES, INCLUDING DATA ACQUISITION AND DATA DELIVERY REQUIRED TO MEET ESTABLISHED AGENCY OBJECTIVES. 8) JPL IS ALSO REQUIRED TO MAINTAIN AND CONDUCT AN EDUCATION PROGRAM IN CLOSE COORDINATION WITH THE NASA HEADQUARTERS EDUCATION OFFICE, THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY AT LARGE, AND IN SUPPORT TO NASA STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES TO IMPROVE STUDENT RETENTION IN THE SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, AND MATHEMATICS (STEM) DISCIPLINES. WORK FOR NON-NASA SPONSORS: JPL MAY PERFORM WORK FOR NON-NASA SPONSORS. THIS WORK WILL BE DESIGNATED IN TASK ORDERS ISSUED BY NMO CONTRACTING OFFICERS BASED ON TASK PLANS INITIATED BY THE CONTRACTOR.$1.5B
- —NEAR EARTH OBJECT SURVEYOR (NEO SURVEYOR) PROJECT (71-107722)$855.9M
- —SPHEREX:AN ALL-SKY SPECTRAL SURVEY 71-700089$269.3M
- —SURFACE BIOLOGY & GEOLOGY (SBG): PRE-PHASE A AND PHASE A PLAN$197.7M
Sources
- USAspending.gov — all awards for this UEI →
- SAM.gov entity registration →
- Award record ingested from usaspending. Source identifier CONT_AWD_80NM0018F0560_8000_80NM0018D0004_8000.
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