AIST Investment Vehicles

The AIST Program uses the NASA Research Announcement (NRA) as its investment vehicle. NRAs are used for both short and long-term research activities. Short-term research activities are addressed by the Master NRA, which is an umbrella solicitation for specifically targeted mini-solicitations, as described below.

NASA Research Announcement
AIST uses the NRA to provide larger investments for longer term, focused IT research activities. Typical NRA project awards range from $150,000 to $500,000 per year for up to three years. Current planning is for NRAs to be competed every three years. AIST NRA solicitations will generally result in NASA Headquarters selected fixed price contract awards.

Master NASA Research Announcement
The AIST Master NRA is a quick response, peer-reviewed solicitation resulting in awards of $50,000 to $300,000 per year for a period of performance not to exceed 24 months. This Master NRA will serve as the umbrella solicitation under which multiple, stand-alone mini-solicitations will be made over the next five years. Each mini-solicitation defines specific AIST needs to complement existing technology investments and solicits ideas from the Earth science and information science communities for filling those identified gaps.

AIST Master NRA 2004