NASA has announced that, following a successful first year, the agency plans to relaunch the NASA Acquisition Innovation Launchpad (NAIL).
NAIL was first launched in February 2023. The procurement innovation program aims to identify ideas and solutions to encourage innovation from diverse perspectives, improve reach, reduce barriers, and build an innovation-focused culture that can produce ideas from team members in the Office of Procurement or across the agency, as well as from industry.
NASA’s Office of Procurement manages the NAIL program. The program was established to find ways of managing risk-taking and encouraging innovation. It does this through the submission, review, and approval of ideas from anyone who engages in the acquisition process.
“The success of the NAIL inaugural year has laid a strong foundation for the future,” said Karla Smith Jackson, deputy chief acquisition officer and assistant administrator for the Office of Procurement.
NASA procurement on the ropes
NASA spends approximately $21 billion or 85% of its budget on acquiring goods and services. However, the agency needs to find new efficiencies and ways to innovate with regard to procurement, as some experts have described NASA’s funding as inadequate to perform the activities core to its mission.
A report released in September 2024 by the National Academies, entitled “NASA at a Crossroads – Maintaining Workforce, Infrastructure, and Technology Preeminence in the Coming Decades” argued that, while NASA’s ability to pursue high-risk, long-lead science and technology challenges and opportunities in aeronautics, space science, Earth science, and space operations and exploration has arguably been the agency’s greatest value to the nation, the agency not only “faces internal and external pressures to prioritise short-term measures without adequate consideration of longer-term needs and implications”, but has a budget that “s often incompatible with the scope, complexity, and difficulty of its mission work.”
NAIL promises to achieve new procurement milestones
Over the past year, NASA spokespeople claim that NAIL has achieved numerous milestones. The program, NASA claims, has allowed it to approach various procurement challenges and implement diverse solutions.
Key accomplishments reportedly include improving procurement processes and technological automations and developing an industry feedback forum. The program update will leverage industry’s feedback to continue fostering innovative solutions and optimise the agency’s procurement efforts.
NASA’s Office of Procurement will use information from the program’s pilot year to focus on the following priorities in 2025:
Providing additional engagement opportunities for the agency’s network of innovators
- Enhancing the framework to improve internal outcomes for the agency
- Promoting procurement success stories
- Investing in talent and technology
“We are incredibly proud of the program’s achievements and are even more excited about the opportunities ahead with the relaunch,” said Kameke Mitchell, NAIL chair and director for the Procurement Strategic Operations Division. “We encourage everyone to get involved and make fiscal year 2025 a standout year for innovation.”