PROPOSER’S GUIDE

FOR

RESPONDING TO A

CUBESAT LAUNCH INITIATIVE

ANNOUNCEMENT OF PARTNERSHIP OPPORTUNITY

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Space Operations Mission Directorarate

Launch Services Office

Release: August 2023
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Table of Contents 

PREFACE........................................................................................................................................................3

1.0 CSLI OVERVIEW.................................................................................................................................4

2.0 PROCESS TO LAUNCH .......................................................................................................................4

2.1 Announcement of Partnership Opportunity.................................................................................4

2.2 Proposals Submitted, Evaluated, and Selections Announced ......................................................5

2.3 CubeSat Developed, Manifested, Launched and Final Report .....................................................5

3.0 Proposal Guidance ...........................................................................................................................5

3.1 Historical Deficiencies in Proposals ..............................................................................................6

3.1.1 Merit Review.........................................................................................................................7

3.1.2 Feasibility Review..................................................................................................................8
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PREFACE 

The Proposer’s Guide (hereinafter referred to as the Guide) is intended to provide helpful tips for 

submitting proposals in response to a NASA Announcement of Partnership Opportunity (AoPO) for the 

CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI). The CSLI website has several resources including, CubeSat 101: Basic 

Concepts and Processes for First-Time CubeSat Developers, and the CubeSat Information and Lessons 

Learned document that contains useful information as well as Frequently Asked Questions that may be 

helpful.

The AoPO is the mechanism the Space Operations Mission Directorate (SOMD) utilizes to solicit 

proposals for educational, scientific, and technology development to support NASA’s strategic goals and 

objectives and NASA workforce development. For those selectees external to NASA, a Cooperative 

Research and Development Agreement or CRADA will be the instrument type. The CRADA is posted on 

the CSLI website and to maintain uniformity among all CSLI Collaborators, NASA will not negotiate 

changes to the agreement. The AoPO is released via https://sam.gov and for the latest news and 

information visit the CSLI website.

This Guide is maintained by the NASA Space Operations Mission Directorate Launch Services Office and 

can be found on the CSLI website.
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1.0 CSLI OVERVIEW 

CSLI is intended to expand U.S. interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) 

and CubeSats are playing an increasingly larger role in exploration, technology demonstrations, scientific 

research, and educational investigations. The objective of CSLI is to provide launch opportunities to lowEarth orbit for a variety of U.S. CubeSat developers who build small satellite payloads.

The partnership between NASA and the organizations selected to participate is a mutually beneficial 

one. The organizations are provided with a mechanism to conduct scientific research in the space 

environment and advance the development of various technologies. CSLI emphasizes education and is 

providing access to space for U.S. educational institutions, nonprofits with an education/outreach 

component, and NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for workforce development. This initiative 

enables students, educators, faculty, and early career NASA employees, to obtain hands-on flight 

hardware development and systems engineering experience. NASA invests in the future by advancing 

the capabilities and technologies that drive human pursuit of innovation, challenging destinations, and 

profound questions.

2.0 PROCESS TO LAUNCH 

There are many steps or milestones to complete prior to launching a CubeSat to space. Once the CSLI 

AoPO has been released, the first step towards launch is to submit a proposal that meets all of the 

requirements as identified in the announcement. Proposals will be evaluated and if selected into CSLI, 

CubeSat development will continue and proceed toward being manifested and launched.

2.1 Announcement of Partnership Opportunity 

The AoPO is released annually and provides the respondent and CubeSat project eligibility 

requirements, submittal due date and time, proposal requirements, evaluation criteria, and the 

selection process. The proposed CubeSat missions must align with NASA Strategic Goals and Objectives. 

The announcement is released each August and is posted on https://sam.gov. The release coincides 

with the annual Small Satellite Conference (AKA SmallSat Conference) that is held at Utah State 

University in Logan, Utah. This event provides a forum for those involved in the small satellite 

community to review recent successes, explore new directions, and introduce emerging technologies in 

small spacecraft development. NASA, CSLI representatives, and past/present CSLI Collaborators attend 

this event, which provides an excellent environment for networking and gathering lessons learned.

AoPO 

Released

Proposals 

Submitted

Proposals 

Evaluated

Selections 

Announced

CubeSat 

Developed

Manifested, 

Launched, 

Final Report
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2.2 Proposals Submitted, Evaluated, and Selections Announced 

Organizations responding to the AoPO must e-mail their proposal to hq-launchservices@mail.nasa.gov

by the due date and time identified in the announcement. An initial compliance review will be 

conducted utilizing the compliance checklist in the applicable appendix to determine if the eligibility 

requirements have been met. If so, the proposal with then be reviewed against the evaluation criteria 

and the score will be weighted as indicated in the AoPO. When making the selections, NASA will 

consider a variety of programmatic factors including, but not limited to, available launches, launch 

service requirements, and maintaining a programmatic and scientific balance.

2.3 CubeSat Developed, Manifested, Launched and Final Report 

The CubeSat selection notifications are released in March and shortly afterwards a CSLI Open House 

virtual meeting is scheduled. This meeting will discuss NASA’s expectations for all the selectees. 

Throughout CubeSat development there will be status updates conducted with the Launch Services 

Program mission managers. NASA wants each CubeSat team to have a successful mission, so it is 

important to bring forward any issues or concerns as early as possible. The mission managers need to 

understand the timeline of the project in order to start looking for manifest options based on the orbital 

requirements and other factors. Once CubeSat development and testing is complete, integration will 

occur in preparations for launch. The final deliverable for missions external to NASA is the Final Report, 

which is due 9 months after launch or deployment.

3.0 Proposal Guidance 

This Guide does not cover all of the areas identified in the AoPO, however will share general tips, and 

then focus on two areas that have historically scored lower in previous proposal submittals. The intent 

is to perhaps help alleviate similar instances from occurring in future proposals. To assist with the 

submission of a valid and complete proposal, the following list of tips should be reviewed:

• Carefully read through the entire AoPO before preparing the proposal. Don’t assume it is the 

same as the previous year as changes may have been implemented and NASA’s strategic 

documents may have been updated. The appendices contain additional information and 

specific requirements based on the organization type (educational, nonprofit, or NASA Center 

including JPL). 

• If respondent and CubeSat eligibility requirements are met, interested parties should review the 

strategic documents referenced in the announcement and identify how the proposed CubeSat 

mission is in alignment with NASA’s goals and objectives for each focus area(s) identified as 

required. The proposal should clearly identify the specific goals of the project, technical details,

and how and why it supports the end goals and why a flight opportunity is necessary or 

advantageous.

• The resumes/qualifications and required compliance documents should be included as an 

appendix to the proposal. If there is supporting documentation from the merit/feasibility 

review that is useful in supporting those assessments the information can be included as an 
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appendix, however it doesn’t take the place of what is required within the main body of the 

proposal.

• Adhere to the proposal requirements and do not include additional documentation that does 

not support the requirements identified in the AoPO. For example, a Preliminary Design Review 

and/or Critical Design Review is not a requirement and should only be available upon request. 

Documents from previous CubeSat missions also should not be included.

• Review the proposal evaluation criteria as the table includes the questions the NASA CSLI 

evaluation panel will be utilizing as part of the review process. Note: the proposal will be 

evaluated based on the focus area(s) selected in the CubeSat Project Details table so be sure the 

proposal, including the merit/feasibility reviews address each focus area selected. If all selected 

focus area(s) are not addressed in the proposal and merit/feasibility review, it will result in a 

lower score. The relevance to NASA strategic goals and objectives or potential impact to NASA 

must be clearly identified in the proposal and have been assessed during the reviews.

• Develop a detailed project schedule that identifies anticipated key milestones for 

accomplishments and dependencies between tasks. The schedule for the CubeSat development 

should support a launch opportunity as stated in the AoPO. Consider the lead time on 

components, potential delivery delays, laboratory testing, and licensing timelines and plan in 

margin for potential technical challenges that will likely arise. The budget should cover CubeSat 

development, testing, and licensing and include reserves for unexpected challenges.

• Characteristics of successful proposals are logical structure, completeness, readability, accuracy 

(no typos, reference to correct documents, etc.) and responsiveness to the evaluation criteria. 

Be consistent in the use of the CubeSat name throughout the proposal and proofread the 

proposal carefully to ensure it is clear, concise, accurate, meets all the eligibility requirements

and contains all the applicable proposal requirements.

• Proposals are submitted to the e-mail address above (section 2.2) and it is recommended to

submit proposals well in advance of the proposal submission deadline to ensure it is received. 

Technical difficulties have occurred in the past and proposals received after the date and time 

identified will not be reviewed.

3.1 Historical Deficiencies in Proposals 

The merit and feasibility reviews have been the two areas that respondents seem to lose the most 

points during the scoring process and therefore reducing the overall average score for the proposal so 

the focus will be on these areas. A common theme from the NASA CSLI evaluation panel is that not 

enough information was provided to determine how the reviews were conducted, qualifications of 

panel members, what the findings were and how the CubeSat team responded to those findings.

The reviews are to be conducted on the specific CubeSat mission being proposed and not a previous, 

heritage, or similar CubeSat mission. If the reviews were conducted several years prior or if the project 

changed significantly based on feedback from those reviews, it would be prudent to conduct another 

review to validate the merit and feasibility of the project. For each review, the proposal should clearly 

identify the panel members assigned to each review along with their title and qualifications.

Any comments made within the proposal, such as the project went through a thorough review by 

qualified review panel members is not sufficient. Teams are very familiar with their CubeSat project, but 
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the NASA CSLI evaluation panel can only review what is in the proposal, so it is crucial to provide a clear 

picture of the entire process.

NASA does not specify how the merit and feasibility reviews should be conducted. However, NASA does 

require the reviews to be completed by the respondent and commented upon by qualified review panel 

members external to the CubeSat project team prior to submitting a proposal. The review panel 

members should be selected based on his/her expertise and professional qualifications as they relate to 

the area(s) of education, scientific research or technology being proposed. To assist the proposers with 

improving their submissions, the following sections provide some suggestions to consider. The 

questions from the evaluation criteria documented in the AoPO are listed.

3.1.1 Merit Review 

The merit review should determine the educational, scientific, or technical quality of the proposed

CubeSat mission and how the mission will assist NASA to achieve the goals and objectives regarding 

STEM, science, and technology as applicable per the focus area(s) selected.

Proposers need to provide enough information to enable the NASA CSLI evaluation panel to properly

assess the quality of the merit review process.

• Was the merit review process described? The proposal should provide enough detail for 

anyone to get a clear understanding of how the review was conducted. Did the team 

provide a list of specific questions to the panel or was a presentation given to the panel with 

the opportunity for them to ask questions. Is this documentation included in the proposal? 

How were the findings documented and were they responded to. Explain how the review 

panel assessed the factors and think of how to clearly show the information; could use a 

table to show the factors used, rating (if used), comments, findings, and the responses to 

those findings. The traceability should be easy to follow. Did the panel review members

provide recommendations on how to address the findings? How did the CubeSat team 

evaluate and respond to those recommendations? Consider the number of panel review 

members; a panel consisting of only one or two members would not provide as a diverse set 

of comments as a larger panel would. Remember, you want the review to be thorough and 

receive feedback that will be valuable to ensuring the CubeSat mission is successful.

• Was the review competitive or non-competitive? If competitive, which one and what were 

the results? A competitive review is conducted by a third party as part of a formal 

competition. NASA and the National Science Foundation periodically conduct these 

competitive reviews. If the review was something similar, state which one and provide the 

results.

• What are the titles and qualifications of the merit reviewer panel members? If this 

information is not available, please indicate so and explain why. The qualifications of the 

panel members should align with the proposed CubeSat mission. Members should be 

selected based on his/her expertise and professional qualifications as they relate to the 

area(s) of education, scientific research or technology being proposed. Having experts in 

the field being proposed will garner constructive feedback vs having panel members who 

are not familiar with the field of study.
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• What factors did the merit review panel use to assess merit and were they relevant to the 

investigation? The quality of the review not only depends on the qualifications of the panel 

review members, but also the factors that were utilized to assess the project. Were specific 

questions given to the review panel? A review consisting of only one or two questions 

would not be very thorough. A review with a list of questions relating to the specific NASA 

goals and objectives the CubeSat mission is addressing would result in a more complete 

review.

• What was the outcome of the merit review; were the findings documented and does the 

proposal include the response to address the findings? Were changes implemented? 

Findings from the review will strengthen the CubeSat project and how the team responds to 

those findings should be included in the proposal. If a change was implemented be clear in 

the proposal what was implemented as a result of the review. For instance, was a team 

member added to cover a specific discipline or was the scope of the CubeSat mission 

modified? If there are findings that were not addressed, include the rationale or if there is 

forward work to be accomplished, describe how the team is addressing the finding(s) and 

identify any potential impacts to the schedule/budget.

3.1.2 Feasibility Review 

The feasibility review should assess the technical implementation, including feasibility, resiliency, risk, 

and the probability of success.

Proposers need to provide enough information to enable the NASA CSLI evaluation panel to properly 

assess the feasibility review process.

• Was the feasibility review process described? The proposal should provide enough detail 

for anyone to get a clear understanding of how the review was conducted. Was it a 

measurement-based assessment or specific metric? Was a presentation given or provided 

to the panel review members? Is this documentation included in the proposal? How were 

the findings documented and were they responded to. Explain how the review panel 

members assessed the factors and think of how to clearly show the information; could use a 

table to show the factors used, rating (if used), comments, findings, and the responses to 

those findings. The traceability should be easy to follow. Did the panel review members 

provide recommendations on how to address the findings? How did the CubeSat team 

evaluate and respond to those recommendations? Consider the number of panel review 

members; a panel consisting of only one or two members would not provide as a diverse set 

of comments as a larger panel would. Remember, you want the review to be thorough and 

receive feedback that will be valuable to ensuring the CubeSat mission is successful.

• What are the titles and qualifications of the feasibility review panel members? The 

qualifications of the panel members should align with the proposed CubeSat mission. 

Members should be selected based on his/her expertise and professional qualifications as 

they relate to the area(s) of education, scientific research or technology being proposed. 

Having experts in the field being proposed will garner constructive feedback vs having panel 

members who are not familiar with the field of study.
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• What factors did the feasibility review panel use to assess feasibility? Were specific 

questions given to the review panel or were they provided the proposed mission and NASA’s 

goals and objectives the mission is seeking to address? If questions were provided, ensure 

they address the aspects of the feasibility review (technical implementation, including 

feasibility, resiliency, risk, and probability of success). Describe how the technical feasibility 

of the payload was assessed.

• Were the management team roles, experience, expertise, and the organizational structure 

of the team assessed? Please note any previous experience with CubeSat development. 

The review panel members should assess the entire team structure; in some cases, only the 

faculty was reviewed. Is the distribution of resources adequate across the various functions 

and lines of communications established? Are there team leads for each of the subsystems 

and are they qualified? Did the review panel members have any concerns that the team 

structure was lacking certain disciplines, e.g., electrical and computer engineering, physics 

majors, or not having systems engineering? If there were concerns, did the CubeSat team 

respond and implement changes? Were additional team members recruited? It is 

important to document everything and have a plan to manage the loss of key personnel as 

they graduate or are no longer involved in the project. 

• How were the technical development risks associated with the overall CubeSat mission 

identified and assessed? Were the risks identified by the CubeSat project, during various 

design reviews, or the feasibility review panel? Was a risk matrix with likelihood(s) and 

consequence(s) utilized to determine the severity of the risk? The responses to any risks 

identified should be included in the proposal. Did any of the risks identified impact the 

schedule for the project? To manage the risks, may want to categorize them, such as Flight 

Safety Risk, Mission Risk, Program Risks. How is the CubeSat team tracking these risks to 

closure?

• If the CubeSat investigation requires critical technology development for flight readiness, 

how were the areas assessed and how were the plans for completing technology

development assessed? Is the engineering building on previous experience from another 

CubeSat mission? What type of laboratory testing has been completed or is planned? Are 

there contingency plans? Is a clear path identified on how to complete the technology 

development? Based on the feedback, did the CubeSat mission change and if so, how? 

Were there any design trade-offs?

• Concerning the development of the CubeSat for flight, how was the probability of success 

assessed? Did the review panel identify any issues that would impact the schedule? The 

schedule should be detailed enough in order for each subsystem team to be aware of the 

milestones and estimated completion date. Identify the tasks at the subsystem level. How 

was the probability of success rated? Low, moderate, high? Numerical score?

• What was the outcome of the feasibility review, were the findings documented and does 

the proposal include responses to address the findings? Were changes implemented? Did 

the review panel have any concerns regarding the scope of the mission? If so, how were 

those concerns evaluated and responded to? Did the CubeSat team change the con-ops of 

the project?
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• Is there sufficient financial support for the development of the CubeSat payload and for all 

other costs incurred by Respondent to supports it participation in CSLI? The budget should

support the CubeSat development, testing, and licensing and it is recommended to have 

adequate budget reserves to cover any potential technical difficulties or cost overruns. The 

funding commitment letters must meet the requirements identified in the AoPO.