NASA Universal Payload Interface

Picture by NASA/Dominic Hart: The third TechLeap Prize challenges applicants to make it easier to integrate diverse technology payloads onto various commercial suborbital vehicles, orbital flight platforms, and planetary landers. Pictured here is a Starling CubeSat.

The NASA TechLeap Prize Universal Payload Interface Challenge invites applicants to propose an optimized “system of systems” to enable easy integration of diverse technology payloads onto various commercial suborbital vehicles, orbital platforms, and planetary landers.

The proposed universal payload interfaces should seamlessly adapt a wide range of small space payloads – be they technologies, laboratory instruments, or scientific experiments – for flight testing.

A maximum of three winners will receive up to $650,000 each to build their system plus the opportunity to flight test it at no cost. The focus is on achieving a simplified and streamlined payload integration process that has the potential to accelerate future flight-testing timelines.

• Registration deadline: February 1, 2024, at 5pm ET
• Application deadline: February 22, 2024, at 5pm ET

Click here for more information about the NASA TechLeap prize.