The Government Accountability Office reported on September 29, 2026, that incomplete commercialization data prevent federal agencies from comparing important outcomes of small-business research awards. NASA is among the agencies receiving recommendations. For the NASA SBIR program, the issue is how to follow an invention beyond the award announcement and determine whether research eventually produces technology that customers purchase or agencies use.
The GAO review examined Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer, commonly called SBIR and STTR. Eleven agencies issued $4.4 billion in awards in fiscal year 2024, the report’s latest award year. Required commercialization information was submitted for fewer than half of prior awards reviewed from fiscal years 2019 through 2024. The missing information limits conclusions about results; it does not establish that the unreported projects failed.
NASA’s small-business research program describes its purpose as helping companies build, mature, and commercialize technologies that advance agency missions and address other needs. The program offers funding without taking an ownership share in the business. That matters for a young company developing an uncertain technical idea. Public research support can finance investigation before a conventional customer is prepared to buy a finished product, but the research award itself is only one stage in that process.
Commercialization therefore needs a careful definition. A working prototype, a patent, a follow-on research award, a licensing agreement, and a product sale describe different achievements. Each may provide useful information, but they should not be treated as interchangeable evidence of demand. For a space technology company, the practical question is whether the work can move into a relationship in which someone pays for an application, rather than simply financing another investigation of its possibilities.
GAO compared open and conventional research topics. In open topics, agencies describe broad interests and companies propose needs and solutions. Conventional topics define more specific problems for applicants to address. Neither approach is inherently a measure of commercial success. An open topic gives a company more room to frame an opportunity; a conventional topic offers a clearer initial problem. Whether either produces stronger results depends on what happens after selection, and incomplete outcome records obstruct that comparison.
NASA received two recommendations: make future Phase II solicitations clear about updated commercialization reports to the Small Business Administration, and require proof of updates for prior Phase II awards completed within five years. NASA agreed. These are recommendations for improving reporting, rather than findings that a particular NASA-funded technology lacks customers. Their value would come from creating a more complete record against which program choices can be assessed.
Completeness and reliability are separate issues. GAO also reported that the Small Business Administration would need validation and verification to regard commercialization information as sufficiently reliable. A form can contain an answer without that answer being accurate, comparable, or attributable to the funded work. Improving participation in reporting addresses missing entries. Establishing what those entries mean requires additional attention to definitions, supporting evidence, and the connection between an award and the activity being reported.
That connection can be difficult even when a company keeps good records. A product may contain technology developed through several research efforts. Revenue can reflect manufacturing, sales, integration, or services as well as the original invention. Treating all company revenue as the return from one award would risk crediting the program for unrelated work. Treating only an immediately identifiable product sale as useful could overlook technology incorporated into another system. Evaluation needs to make its boundaries visible.
Timing creates another analytical challenge. Research may produce a technically credible result long before a customer’s buying decision. A short observation period can favor projects with immediate applications, and a long one can introduce more outside influences. Comparisons should therefore identify award years and elapsed time rather than place recent and older projects into an undifferentiated success category. This is a methodological implication of measuring commercialization, not a new finding about NASA’s individual awardees.
Missing records can also distort a comparison in either direction. Successful companies might have little time or incentive to update a government database, and unsuccessful firms might stop reporting after operations end. Without evidence about the missing cases, either explanation remains a possibility rather than an established account. A published success rate based only on respondents would need to describe that limitation. More observations do not automatically remove a bias if the same types of projects remain absent.
For entrepreneurs, New Space Economy’s overview of funding and sales resources provides context for the distinction between obtaining development support and finding customers. Those activities can reinforce each other, but they answer different questions. A company can win funding because its research is promising and still need to establish a buying relationship. Its commercial plan should explain that transition rather than assume an agency’s technical interest guarantees a market.
The reporting issue is also relevant to NASA’s changing solicitation structure. The agency’s 2026 program information hub describes a shift to a Broad Agency Announcement, with research topics released through multiple appendices. NASA presents this as a way to respond more flexibly to changing needs. That administrative change does not establish better commercialization outcomes. Clear outcome reporting remains useful regardless of how opportunities are organized or how frequently companies can propose work.
Better records would help distinguish a program’s reach from its results. Award counts and spending describe the scale of support. Reported sales and subsequent applications provide evidence about what happened later, subject to their definitions and verification. Technical learning may remain valuable even when a product is not sold, but it should be assessed on its own terms. Combining research learning, business growth, and commercial adoption into one favorable label would make the program harder to evaluate.
GAO’s finding leaves a practical task for NASA and its research partners: build a record that can support judgments more demanding than a collection of success stories. Clear requirements, evidence of submission, and reliable interpretation can make those judgments possible. The eventual benefit is a stronger basis for deciding which forms of support help promising research reach useful applications, and where the path from an award to a customer still needs work.
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