Stoke Space Technologies’ second-stage engine injector undergoes a test firing at the company’s component test facility. (Stoke Photo)
Two Washington state companies have won grants of up to $750,000 each from NASA to take space-related technologies they’re already working on to the next stage of development.
The aim of the program is to encourage the development of innovations that could contribute to NASA’s efforts in human exploration, space technology, science and aeronautics and could find commercial, non-NASA applications as well. All of the Phase II awardees previously received NASA SBIR Phase I awards that were worth up to $125,000 each.
NASA Invests $105 Million in US Small Business Technology Development
News provided by
Share this article
Share this article
WASHINGTON, May 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ NASA has a long history of supporting America s entrepreneurs as they develop technologies from ideas to commercial readiness. The agency s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is furthering that legacy with 140 new Phase II awards to 127 U.S. small businesses that will help them move their innovations to market.
The awards to these small businesses, located across 34 states and Washington, D.C., total $105 million. NASA s small business program is dedicated to finding the most useful technologies for the agency and the commercial marketplace, and sourcing those innovations from a diverse group of entrepreneurs with different backgrounds and perspectives. The companies chosen for Phase II funding include 33 women-owned, minority-owned, and veteran-owned small businesses.
Lunar telescope could reveal the Dark Ages of the universe
Vladimir Vustyansky/JPL/NASA
This illustration shows the proposed Lunar Crater Radio Telescope on the far side of the moon.
Scientists want to build a radio telescope on the far side of the moon to help pull back the curtain on the mysteries surrounding the beginning of the universe.
While not an official full-fledged NASA mission, the concept of the Lunar Crater Radio Telescope, or LCRT, has been in development for years. The project recently received a $500,000 boost upon entering the second phase of NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program.
Illuminates the dark cosmic ages by Jake Pearson
In the first stage NASA The idea was to see robots fix wire nets in a crater far from the moon and create a radio telescope to explore the rise of the universe.
After years of development, the Lunar Crater Radio Telescope (LCRT) project received $ 500,000 to support overtime as it entered the second phase of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIIC) program. Although not yet a NASA mission, the LCRT describes a mission concept that could change mankind’s view of the universe.
The main purpose of the LCRT is to measure the long-wave radio waves produced by the cosmic dark ages – hundreds of millions of years later. The Big BangBut before the first stars began to exist. Cosmologists knew very little about this period, but at the time they answered some of the greatest mysteries in science that could be limited to long-wave radio radiation from the gas that could fill the universe.