Exploring Mars Together: Commercial Services Studies

Update – December 2, 2024

NASA’s Mars Exploration Program recently received US industry studies to further understand the potential of Mars commercial services in payload delivery/hosting, telecommunications, and imaging.

We invite members of our commercial services community to an update and Q&A session:

Wednesday, December 4

11:00 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern Time

If you would like to attend, please email mep-industry-ext-info@jpl.nasa.gov by Tuesday, Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. ET.

For your reference, the following link contains a recent update/presentation that we gave to the Mars science community.

https://science.nasa.gov/planetary-science/programs/mars-exploration/industry-engagement/

We hope you can join us and look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas.

All the best,

Richard (Rick) Davis & Steve Matousek

NASA Mars Commercial Services Co-Leads

Update – May 1, 2024

NASA has selected 9 companies to conduct studies of commercial services at Mars for the study RFP. A summary of the awardees and further details can be found using the links below:

NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/planets/mars/nasa-selects-commercial-service-studies-to-enable-mars-robotic-science/

JPL: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-selects-commercial-service-studies-to-enable-mars-robotic-science

Thank you to everyone who submitted proposals, as well as everyone that contributed ideas to this effort. As the Mars Exploration Program continues to explore the potential of commercial services, we look forward to continuing to work with you.

February 2, 2024: This update adds two files: (1) RFP in total except for Mission Design Handbook (47 pages), and (2) Exhibit V Reference Mars Mission Design Handbook (449 pages). With this update, the combined and separate files are now available to aid proposers. The separate files are identical in content to the combined file posted previously.

The Mars Exploration Program (MEP) Draft Plan through the next two decades would utilize more frequent lower cost missions to achieve compelling science and exploration for a larger community. To realize the goals of the MEP plan, government and U.S. industry would partner to leverage current and emerging Earth and lunar products and commercial services to substantially lower the overall cost and accelerate leadership in deep space exploration. This RFP for industry studies is a step along that path. NASA MEP intends, though has no obligation, to use the information from these resulting studies to inform one or more future service contracts. We welcome your proposal and look forward to engagement as we forge the future together.