Affordable Access to Space

Note: Please note that this is an “archived project” and is no longer updated. This article is meant for historical purposes only.

The Affordable Access To Space (AATS) project is a set of agreements / studies to enable NASA missions with affordable, dedicated access to space by continually maturing new technologies and implementing new approaches to reduce the price point for space payloads.

Several private and government-sponsored launch vehicle developers are working toward the ability to affordably insert small payloads into low-Earth orbit. But until now, cost of the complex avionics remained disproportionately high. Affordable Vehicle Avionics (AVA), a project at NASA’s Ames Research Center solves this problem. AVA is looking into development of next-generation, very low-cost guidance, navigation and control avionics systems aimed as a possible solution for a family of low-cost suborbital to orbit launch vehicles.