Early Stage Innovations (ESI) | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

NASA's Early Stage Innovations (ESI) opportunity is a competitive grant call run by NASA Headquarters through the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), under the Space Technology Research Grants (STRG) Program. It is aimed specifically at accredited U.S. universities and focuses on very early, high-impact space technology research that matters to NASA's Mission Directorates but is not yet mature enough to fit into more applied, later-stage development programs. The central idea is to fund fundamental, high-risk/high-payoff work that can open up entirely new technical options for future missions and, over time, generate broader national benefits such as spin-off applications and even new industries.

A defining feature of ESI is its emphasis on low Technology Readiness Level (TRL) research. NASA expects proposed efforts to start around TRL 1 or TRL 2, meaning basic principles observed and early concept formulation, and to typically finish around TRL 2 or TRL 3, where feasibility begins to be demonstrated through analysis and early proof-of-concept work. This low-TRL focus is intentional: it complements other NASA technology investments that often begin at TRL 3 or higher, and it helps NASA build a pipeline of transformative ideas before they are constrained by specific mission schedules, budgets, or near-term flight requirements.

ESI is looking for technologies that are disruptive or transformational at the system level. Even if the research progress during the award period is incremental in a laboratory or modeling sense, NASA wants the proposal to clearly explain how the end result could translate into major improvements for real space systems. The solicitation highlights improvements such as better performance, reduced mass, lower cost, higher reliability, and simpler operations, along with other mission-relevant figures of merit. At the same time, NASA explicitly draws boundaries around what it will not fund under this appendix: it does not want literature reviews, survey-only efforts, or small incremental upgrades that merely extend the current state of the art without a strong case for substantial system-level impact.

Another key requirement is topic alignment. This appendix is tightly scoped to six specific topic areas listed in Section 1.3 of the ESI Appendix, and proposals must be clearly responsive to at least one of them. If a proposal does not match any of these topics as described, it is considered non-compliant and will not proceed to peer review. The six topic areas are: Topic 1, Advanced Thermal Protection Materials Modeling; Topic 2a, Uncertainty Quantification for Additive Manufacturing; Topic 2b, Computational Modeling of NDE (Non-Destructive Evaluation) Interactions in Composite Structures; Topic 3, Technologies for In Situ Utilization of Asteroid Materials; Topic 4, Mobile Robotic Surface Probe Concepts for Planetary Exploration; Topic 5, Kinetic Penetrators for Icy Moons; and Topic 6, Advanced Technology Habitat System Design. These topics are connected to NASA's broader Space Technology Roadmaps and reflect external review input from the National Research Council, signaling that the research areas are part of a larger strategic technology plan.

From an administrative standpoint, ESI is a discretionary funding opportunity using a grant instrument, categorized under science and technology and other research and development. NASA anticipated making around 12 awards, with an award ceiling of $500,000 and no cost-sharing or matching requirement. The listing references CFDA 43.009 (Cross Agency Support). Eligibility is summarized at a high level in the notice (with full details in the ESI solicitation), and the posting emphasizes that interested universities and investigators should be prepared to use NASA's NSPIRES system for submission, including ensuring registrations and required proposal materials are completed well ahead of the deadline.

Key dates for this specific release were a requested (but not mandatory) Notice of Intent by June 24, 2014, and a proposal deadline on or before July 23, 2014 (with the record also showing an original closing date of July 21, 2014 and a current closing date of July 23, 2014). The full solicitation package and detailed submission instructions were provided through the SpaceTech REDDI 2014 NRA and posted on NSPIRES. Questions were directed to the STRG Program Executive, Claudia Meyer, for technical and programmatic matters, and to the procurement point of contact, Andre Sheppard, for procurement-related issues, both using the same published mailbox (hq-esi-call@mail.nasa.gov). NASA also noted that answers to questions might be incorporated into an FAQ on the NSPIRES page, with anonymity preserved for those submitting inquiries.

In short, ESI is a NASA university research grant opportunity designed to seed bold, early-stage space technology concepts in a small set of targeted areas, pushing ideas from basic principles toward initial proof-of-concept, with the expectation that successful work could later enable significant leaps in mission capability across NASA, other government users, and the commercial space sector.

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