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Editor’s note: This article serves as a follow-up to a previously published piece, providing additional insight to more recent events during the agency’s ongoing role in supporting NASA’s Artemis missions. This was also featured in Defense Acquisition Magazine’s March 2025 edition, where it was combined with another article recognizing the winner of the silver snoopy award.
MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. – Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) Director Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory Masiello and DCMA Deputy Director Sonya Ebright recently visited the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to discuss support for phase two of NASA’s long-term lunar surface activities and deep space flight initiatives.
DCMA is the principal agency focused on contract administration for NASA spaceflight acquisition and the Office of Space Development. DCMA is uniquely positioned to formulate policies supporting a unified government-wide approach.
Moon to Mars
The Artemis campaign aims to return humans to the moon and establish a sustainable presence to facilitate future missions to Mars. DCMA leaders toured the facilities and discussed capabilities along with support and mission requirements for the campaign’s second phase, Artemis II, scheduled to launch in 2026. This phase will carry astronauts for a lunar flyby—a spaceflight maneuver whereby the spacecraft passes close to the moon. Astronauts are expected to spend less than an hour near the moon to observe, take photos, and test the Orion module’s systems.
“As Lt. Gen. Masiello and I observed the NASA crew integrate rocket boosters with the Space Launch System at Kennedy Space Center, I thought about how this was a testament to the dedication and expertise of our DCMA team who helped make this a reality,” said Ebright. “From Utah, where I saw the boosters before their journey here to New Orleans, where the core segment was carefully prepared, this mission represents the collaboration and innovation in our partnership with NASA. The work we do—providing critical acquisition insights—ensures these systems are integrated safely and efficiently.”
The Artemis I uncrewed test flight in November 2022 was key to NASA’s success and attended by DCMA’s team, who now focus on meeting NASA’s goals and the contract administration for Artemis II.
“These collaborative efforts aren’t just about returning to the moon,” Ebright said. “It’s about advancing human exploration in a safe and efficient manner by leveraging the capabilities and expertise of our teams to help contribute to this massive endeavor.”
Supporting Deep Spaceflight
DCMA NASA Program Manager Craig Bennett and DCMA NASA Product Operations Director Brian McGinnis represented the agency at the Kennedy Space Center two years earlier, providing insight that enabled DCMA to become the first DoD organization to support NASA’s goals of human deep spaceflight.
“Our relationship with NASA is essential to ensure that spacecraft are capable of spaceflight,” said Bennett. “Working together as a group, we jointly harness the experience and skills of the [DCMA] Office of Space Development and NASA in the field of spaceflight. Together, we are able to solve some of the most difficult problems associated with this type of procurement, therefore assuring unfettered access to spaceflight, both uncrewed and crewed.”
With the Artemis campaign focused on landing the first woman and the next man on the lunar surface, DCMA and NASA established the Joint Strategic Quality Council, or JSQC, with members from the Aerospace Industries Association, International Quality Group, and other Acquisition Category partners.
“Working together as a single, inventive team is essential when it comes to spaceflight acquisition,” Bennett said. “Innovative core strengths are the trigger that leads to predictable spaceflight as we all consider costs, schedule, technical compliance, and spaceship capabilities.”
To ensure a people-ready environment in deep space travel, NASA created the NASA Technical Requirements for Human-Rating standards to establish technical criteria for human rated space systems that ensure crew and passenger safety during NASA missions. This standard defines system safety and control requirements, including failure tolerance and human-system integration, to accommodate human needs and effectively use human capabilities. This document, aimed to align with NASA’s Moon-to-Mars architecture and evolving commercial partnerships, was approved in December 2023.
“There is a large amount of shuttle launch expertise and understanding of spaceflight contract supervision within DCMA,” Bennett said. “We’ve had a cooperation with NASA since 2011 with the purpose of providing contract supervision and insight to enhance the design and performance of these systems.”
The Artemis I launch marked the beginning of efforts to modernize the DCMA Support to NASA Manual 3101-03, written with NASA initiatives and standards in mind to serve as a critical resource for enhancing coordination among teams, mitigating risks, and contributing to the Artemis campaign’s overall objectives.
“The morning of the Artemis I launch was humbling for the team and me,” Bennett said as he reflected on the difficulties that plagued the Artemis I before its successful launch. “We witnessed NASA’s ability to quickly fix some of the issues that arose based on the data we were able to provide.”
Although this wasn’t the first NASA mission DCMA professionals supported, it was the first meant to send humans farther than ever before.
“DCMA’s support needed to change from accommodating loworbit human spaceflight, which is typically 250 miles above the Earth, to deep space human spaceflight,” Bennett said. “Knowing the moon is approximately 239,000 miles away, these deep space missions would need to accommodate for long-term, off-world operations on the lunar surface.”
DCMA Rapid Action Teamwork
Bennett soon formed the NASA Rapid Action Team, or RAT, consisting of experts from various DCMA departments, including NASA Product Operations, the Enterprise Analytics and Modernization Directorate, and the Financial and Business Operations Directorate.
DCMA Support to NASA RAT primarily focuses on aligning DCMA’s core capabilities with NASA’s mission to return American astronauts to the lunar surface and establish a continuous presence beyond near-Earth orbit.
“The voice of the customer is interwoven into the manual after the RAT, and NASA reviewed long-established procedures in relation to the new NASA mission requirements,” said Bennett. “The collaboration helped DCMA team members understand the increased challenges and requirements of flying U.S. astronauts into deep space and return safely.”
In Fiscal Year 2024, DCMA achieved several milestones, including the development of new policies, tools, and training programs to support deep-space human spaceflight. The updated DCMA Support to the NASA Manual was released in February 2024, and a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed by Ebright and NASA Deputy Administrator Pamela Melroy.
“We also established an organizational structure focused on human spaceflight and space acquisition supporting off-world operations, etc.,” said Bennett. “DCMA NASA Product Organization, or NPO, is an organization within DCMA dedicated to space acquisition contract administration services [CAS]. DCMA also created innovative enterprise-level tools to provide CAS insight from raw materials to off-world surface operations. NPO is a one-of-a-kind organization committed [to] leveraging innovative tools delivering current and realtime spaceflight hardware health and predictive information. This includes everything from raw materials, such as the fabrication of solid rocket fuel, to integrated deep spaceflight, which includes human-rating certification.
DCMA oversaw development of several propulsion and deep spaceflight vehicles that most recently integrated with the Space Launch System, or SLS, which Bennett attributes to the earlier collaborative efforts of rewriting the DoD and NASA MOUs as well as developing new industry best practices and requirements.
“The agency’s contract administration service insights into DoD contractor’s productions and programs, as well as NASA productions, gave both NASA and the DoD a comprehensive understanding of contractor capacity,” Bennett said. “They were also able to see the health of their processes and businesses through DCMA’s contract supervision of key components, which included both technical and business knowledge.”
Predictive Analytic Advancement
One significant advancement in this collaboration was deployment of predictive analysis tools that leverage contractor data and risk models to identify and validate critical processes across the supply chain.
“This approach can lead to a reduction of mandatory inspections and transition toward contractor capabilities and predictive insight,” said Bennett. “The human spaceflight acquisition professionals aligned under NASA Product Operations will become seamless and instrumental to the DCMA vision, NASA strategy and to mitigate spaceflight acquisition challenges.”
DCMA and NASA stakeholders began their collaboration to create unrestricted access to space, return American astronauts to the moon’s surface, establish a long-term, off world presence on the moon, and prepare for human spaceflight to Mars to fulfill a presidential directive issued in 2017.
“DCMA Support to NASA RAT, led by Craig Bennett, represents a unified approach with NASA support and guidance harmonized with NASA’s vision, strategy, and the Presidential Space Directive of 2017,” McGinnis said. “DCMA will work with DoD and industry partners, in accordance with this directive, to return humans to the moon with a goal to eventually enable humans to explore Mars.”
| Date Taken: | 03.06.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 03.21.2025 16:00 |
| Story ID: | 493480 |
| Location: | MERRITT ISLAND, FLORIDA, US |
| Hometown: | MERRITT ISLAND, FLORIDA, US |
| Web Views: | 70 |
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