EARLY STAGE INNOVATIONS (ESI) | 80HQTR21NOA01 21ESI B2

Opportunity Information: Apply for 80HQTR21NOA01 21ESI B2

NASA's Early Stage Innovations (ESI) opportunity is a university-focused research grant competition run through NASA Headquarters under the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD). It was released on April 28, 2021 as an appendix to STMD's broader umbrella NASA Research Announcement called "Space Technology Research, Development, Demonstration, and Infusion 2021 (SpaceTech-REDDI-2021)." The program sits within STMD's Space Technology Research Grants (STRG) Program and is aimed at pushing early, high-upside ideas that could become genuinely disruptive space technologies. The core emphasis is not incremental improvement, but concepts that can plausibly create a substantial, clearly articulated system-level payoff such as markedly better performance, reduced mass, lower cost, improved reliability, or simpler operations for spaceflight hardware or mission architectures.

A central feature of ESI is that it is designed specifically for accredited U.S. universities, reflecting NASA's view that universities are well positioned to blend fundamental research with workforce development and knowledge diffusion through graduate education and partnerships. Only accredited U.S. institutions of higher education are eligible to submit proposals, including both public/state-controlled and private universities. Teaming is allowed, but applicants have to follow the solicitation's eligibility details and restrictions. NASA also limits proposal load at the investigator level: a Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-Investigator (Co-I) may appear on no more than two proposals submitted under this solicitation, which encourages teams to be selective and discourages scattershot submissions. NASA explicitly encourages proposals involving tenure-track faculty and places special emphasis on increasing participation by women, members of underrepresented minority groups, and persons with disabilities.

The solicitation is narrowly scoped to five specific technical topics, and proposals must fit one of them to be considered responsive. Those topics are: (1) Advanced Materials for High-Voltage Power Transmission on the Moon, targeting new materials and approaches that could enable reliable, efficient lunar power delivery under harsh environmental and operational constraints; (2) Development of Quantum Communication Technologies, which aligns with emerging quantum methods for secure communications and potentially novel space networking capabilities; (3) Cognitive Networking Advancements for Lunar Communication and Navigation, focused on intelligent/adaptive networking concepts that could improve robustness, autonomy, and performance for lunar comms and nav; (4) Supersonic Retropropulsion Wind Tunnel Data Analysis, emphasizing analysis and insight extraction from wind tunnel datasets relevant to retropropulsion in supersonic regimes; and (5) Advanced Heat Rejection Technologies for Space-Flight Radiators, aimed at improving thermal management and radiator performance for spacecraft systems. NASA also signals that future ESI appendices may introduce additional topics, but this release is limited to those five.

In terms of funding and scale, ESI is a discretionary grant program (CFDA 43.012) with an award ceiling of $650,000 per award. NASA indicated it planned to make about 10 awards, contingent on receiving enough highly meritorious proposals, and it reserved the right to make fewer awards or none at all depending on proposal quality and other considerations. Awards were expected to begin in mid-January 2022, which implies selected projects would start shortly after selection and award processing.

Submission is handled electronically, either through NASA's NSPIRES system or via Grants.gov, and proposals must be submitted by an authorized organizational representative. A Notice of Intent (NOI) was strongly encouraged and due May 26, 2021, while full proposals were due by June 28, 2021 at 5:00 pm Eastern. Because NSPIRES registration and system familiarity can be a bottleneck, NASA urged applicant organizations to ensure registrations were complete and to submit well ahead of the deadline to avoid last-minute compliance or upload issues. The solicitation itself (including exact formatting, required elements, teaming rules, and PI eligibility restrictions) is accessed in NSPIRES by navigating to Solicitations, then Open Solicitations, then selecting "Early Stage Innovations (ESI)."

For questions and clarifications, NASA directed technical and programmatic inquiries to the STRG Program Executive via email at hq-esi-call@mail.nasa.gov. Responses were to be provided by email and could also be added to the FAQ materials posted on the NSPIRES page for the solicitation, with NASA noting that the anonymity of individuals and institutions submitting questions would be preserved.

• The National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "EARLY STAGE INNOVATIONS (ESI)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 43.012.
• This funding opportunity was created on Apr 28, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 28, 2021. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $650,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 10 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

Apply for 80HQTR21NOA01 21ESI B2

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