NASA's Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition program (CSDA) announced contract awards with eight commercial satellite data providers offering a range of data types to support the agency's Earth science research and application goals.
The CSDA program On-Ramp 2 Multiple Award contract is a firm-fixed-price indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) multiple-award contract with a maximum cumulative value of $476 million and a performance period through November 2028.
The CSDA IDIQ contract includes an on‑ramp provision that allows NASA to periodically reopen the solicitation, giving new vendors the opportunity to submit proposals. This mechanism also enables existing CSDA vendors to propose new data products, whether newly developed or derived from new instruments, that were not available during the original proposal period.
Newly Added Contract Holders
| Vendor | Sensor |
| HydroSat | Thermal Infrared |
| Ororatech | Thermal Infrared (Medium Wave Infrared (MWIR) and Longwave Infrared (LWIR)) |
| ImageSat | Optical Multispectral Instrument (MSI) |
| Satlantis | Optical MSI / Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions |
| Kuva Space | Hyperspectral (Visible and Near-Infrared (VNIR) and Shortwave Infrared (SWIR) |
| Wyvern | Hyperspectral |
| Orbital Sidekick | Hyperspectral (VNIR-SWIR) |
| Muon Space | Global Navigation Satellite System - Radar (GNSS-R) |
Current CSDA Contract Holders with New Products
| Vendor | Sensor |
| Airbus | Optical MSI / Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) |
| ICEYE | SAR |
| GHGSat | GHG Emissions |
| Planet Labs | Optical MSI / Hyperspectral |
| PlanetiQ | Global Navigation Satellite System - Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO) |
| Tomorrow.io | Microwave Sounder |
"NASA's Earth science community relies on a diverse suite of observations from spaceborne, airborne, and in situ assets to better understand our changing planet," said CSDA Project Manager Dana Ostrenga. "The commercial providers added through this latest CSDA contract on-ramp complement NASA's existing Earth observation capabilities and our current portfolio of commercial partners, expanding the range of data available for evaluation and use. Together, these observations provide researchers with a more comprehensive view of Earth's atmosphere, land, oceans, cryosphere, and solid Earth, helping advance scientific discovery and applications that benefit our communities."
Following issuance of the contract awards, the selected vendors' data products will be made available to authorized CSDA data users via the Satellite Data Explorer (SDX), CSDA's web-based data discovery and data access tool that allows approved users to search, discover, access, task, and download the data the program has acquired from its commercial partners.
The Vendor Selection Process
The award process begins with the CSDA issuing a request for proposals that is posted on Sam.gov, the U.S. government's official system for managing federal contract proposals. Interested companies then submit proposals to enter into an IDIQ contract with CSDA. A Solicitation Evaluation Board is formed to determine whether the proposals are competitive and meet the CSDA's technical requirements for continuous observations, orbit platforms, and data that aligns with NASA Earth Science Division (ESD) goals. The CSDA makes its selections from the proposals that meet the requirements and then submits them to NASA leadership for approval. Once approved, the contracts are then awarded and the companies are able to get their data evaluated by CSDA. Once the evaluations are complete, the commercial data providers can then compete for competitive task orders through CSDA.
