To participate in the Space Programs Advancing Research and Commercialization (SPARC) Biotech Challenge, interested respondents must submit a response via the online response form prior to the submission deadline of September 13, 2024 by 8pm Eastern Standard Time. Responses must include only non-confidential, non-proprietary content.
The online response form gives you the opportunity to tell Rhodium Scientific and TechConnect about the biotech research you would like to conduct on the International Space Station. Proposed experiments must advance work towards the development of a commercial product.
TechConnect will invite submitters with promising experiments to share additional non-confidential details about their proposed technology via a second online submission. Respondents who do not complete and submit the requested supplemental information by September 26, 2024 at 8pm ET will not be eligible as finalists.
Out of all eligible respondents who we ask to provide additional information regarding a proposed experiment, up to twenty-five (25) top-ranked respondents will be invited to meet with Rhodium Scientific for a virtual Q&A session in late-October 2024. Those finalists will also be invited to pitch at Defense TechConnect Innovation Summit in Austin in December. TechConnect will announce a winner at that event.
Evaluation
All eligible submissions will be evaluated on a nine-point scale (1 = Exceptional to 9 = Poor) inspired by the rating scale used by the National Institutes of Health. Evaluators will consider submissions on the following metrics:
- Approach & Technical Merit
- Innovation
- Significance
- Team
- Environment & Collaboration
- Market & Opportunity
TechConnect will publicly identify up to 25 respondents with the best overall score and invite them to participate in a virtual Q&A session with a panel of internal and external experts selected by Rhodium Scientific. The panel will interview the finalists regarding their proposed experiment and evaluated according to the same ranking concept.
Incentives
Throughout this Challenge, Rhodium Scientific and TechConnect will offer the following prizes and opportunities to finalists and the winner:
Up to 10 finalists will receive:
- Space flight feasibility assessment on proposed science mission
- Training on selected Rhodium Scientific flight hardware and ISS operations concept
- Rhodium Scientific mission patches and space swag
- Support submitting concept to other related RFPs
One winner will receive the opportunity to have their science mission launched to, operated on and returned from the ISS as well as expert guidance and consultation including:
- Pre-Flight Support:
- Experiment flight feasibility consulting services for payload design to meet NASA safety requirements
- Training on sample handling and Rhodium Scientific flight hardware loading procedures
- Bi-weekly meetings to discuss status of mission and identify upcoming requirements
- Coordination with NASA launch facility managers for standard lab equipment as needed to support sample preparation and launch activities
- On-Orbit Support:
- Invitation to view launch at Kennedy Space Center in Florida
- On-orbit payload activity reports
- Team-designed mission patches
- Post-Flight Support:
- Coordination of post-flight sample return under pre-determined sample preservation conditions
- Post flight science consulting including design of ground control experiments
- Support writing publications/patents as applicable
All finalists will receive complementary admittance to the Defense TechConnect Conference in Austin, Texas this December 2024 to showcase their solutions to an audience of space industry professionals, government representatives, and venture capital investors. Travel and hotel costs are not included.