NASA says it will run a competition for the next contract to manage and operate its federally funded research and development centre at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, ending decades of sole-source awards to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Caltech has managed JPL since the laboratory’s origins in the 1930s. NASA said management and operations contracts have been awarded on a sole-source basis since JPL was transferred from the U.S. Army to NASA in 1958.
According to NASA, growth in the U.S. space economy suggests there may now be a viable competitive market for elements of JPL’s programmatic and institutional operations. The agency said competing the contract would allow it to assess alternative management approaches, including…
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Source spaceanddefense.io
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