NASA's Competition Model 2.0: Judge the Science First, Write the Engineering Plan Later
NASA says it wants to deliver science faster, so it is changing how it competes for and selects missions, starting from a simple premise: compete on the science first.
Proposals under the new model are science-focused, and detailed engineering, cost and implementation work is not required until it is genuinely needed to make a decision.
One set of missions moves to a new, accelerated two-step competition, an update NASA expects to cut the time to step-2 selection by as much as 45 percent. The biggest missions are carved out: CM2.0 does not change how they are managed, because NASA says that process was already reformed.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
The tension worth watching is speed against rigor. The same plan keeps cost and schedule control mandatory across every mission class, with breaches carrying consequences up to and including mission termination. Faster selection does not mean a softer leash.
Equal footing for first-time teams is the selling line, but implementing organizations are also evaluated on past performance on projects of similar complexity and cost. That is a thumb on the scale for the usual suspects, however clean the science-only pitch sounds.