Assessment of a commercial acquisition strategy for human exploration beyond LEO

What is it about?

This paper assesses the suitability of various elements currently in NASA Evolvable Mars Campaign to an alternative acquisition strategy. This strategy was used to develop and purchase services for commercial cargo and crew to the ISS. The paper presents metrics, performs the assessment, and provides observations on acquiring elements using this alternative acquisition strategy.

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Why is it important?

Acquisition strategy has a significant impact on the overall cost of a given human space exploration campaign. This impact is perhaps larger than the efficiency of the selected architecture. This paper presents the type of analysis that should be done at the conceptual level to inform potential cost, schedule, and risk during development of the elements.