NASA has awarded 10 companies contracts worth a total of $20 million over five years as part of the NASA Open Innovation Service program that aims to crowdsource solutions to human space exploration challenges.
The space agency said June 4Â the first challenges under the NOIS contracts target algorithms that will help the Robonaut project make use of materials found in space.
“This approach is designed to enlist the public’s help in tackling some of the most pressing problems facing NASA and other government agencies, ” said Jason Crusan, director of the Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation at NASA.
The awardees of the 10 NOIS contracts are:
- Appirio
- HeroX PBC
- InnoCentive
- Kaggle
- Luminary Labs
- NineSigma
- OpenIDEO
- Patexia
- The Common Pool
- Tongal
The NASA Tournament Lab will manage the challenges under the new contracts, NASA said.
