Assistance program
Exploration
$605.6 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Assistance
- Cooperative Agreements;Cooperative Agreements (Discretionary Grants);Project Grants;Project Grants (Cooperative Agreements or Contracts);Project Grants (Cooperative Agreements);Project Grants (Discretionary);Project Grants (Fellowships);Project Grants (for Specified Projects);Project Grants (Including Individual Awards);Project Grants (Including Travel Grants);Direct Payments for Specified Use;Direct Payments for Specified Use (Cooperative Agreements);Use of Property, Facilities, and Equipment;Provision of Specialized Services;Dissemination of Technical Information;Training
- CFDA number
- 43.003
- What it does
- The Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD) defines and manages systems development for programs critical to the NASA’s Artemis campaign and planning for NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach in an integrated manner. ESDMD manages the human exploration system development for lunar orbital, lunar surface, and Mars exploration. ESDMD leads the human aspects of the Artemis activities as well as the integration of science into the human system elements. ESDMD is responsible for development of the lunar and Mars architectures. Programs in the mission directorate include Orion, Space Launch System, Exploration Ground Systems, Gateway, Human Landing System, and Extravehicular Activity (xEVA)and Human Surface Mobility.
- Who benefits
- Not Applicable
- Who applies
- Not Applicable
- Program site
- https://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/ ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments