A Blue Canyon Technologies cubsat built for NASA. Photo: Blue Canyon Technologies

NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate awarded Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) a $4.9 million contract to develop a technology that allows BCT’s spacecraft buses to perform autonomous navigation on-board, without any additional hardware. The news came as part of NASA’s recent announcement of more than $40 million in contracts to 14 companies as part of its “Tipping Point” solicitation, an effort to develop technologies that support the agency’s Moon to Mars exploration approach.

BCT has been selected for the second highest contract award, to develop and conduct an in-space demonstration of a new autonomous navigation solution. BCT buses equipped with this solution will be capable of navigating through space with greatly reduced need to “talk” to Earth in order to collect critical data and intelligence.

“By providing a turnkey spacecraft bus with integrated autonomous navigation capability, we are opening the door for both the government and commercial industries to deploy CubeSat and SmallSat technologies for cislunar and interplanetary missions,” said George Stafford, founder and CEO of Blue Canyon Technologies. “This contract allows us to develop a technology and associated price point that would not be available otherwise.”