NASA Funds Technology Development Efforts by Small Firms, Research Institutions

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced the award of $15 million to American small businesses and research institutions for the continued development of new technologies in a wide range of areas that could prove beneficial to space exploration. Through the Small Business Technology Transfer program, it is able to provide early-stage funding and other non-monetary support to small businesses, who must partner with a U.S. research institution on their proposals, NASA said Thursday.

Jenn Gustetic, director of early-stage innovation and partnerships at NASA, said that teaming up with small businesses allows the space agency to benefit from diverse mindsets and skillsets. She added that small firms and their partner research institutions bring fresh ideas into the agency’s missions and commercial marketplace.

In a statement, NASA said that 20 proposals from 19 companies have been chosen for the latest round of Phase II awards. All awardees are previous NASA STTR Phase I recipients, originally selected in June 2020 after they demonstrated the feasibility of their technologies. As Phase II awardees, each small business team will now receive up to $750,000 to develop, demonstrate and deliver their technologies to NASA over a two-year period.

Among the Phase II awardees are AdvR, Inc., a small business located in Bozeman, Montana that has been working with the NASA STTR program for nearly twenty years. Together with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the firm will study quantum sensing and measurement in hopes of creating a bi-photon source that could be used in astrophysics missions, NASA said.