The NASA logo on a wall at Kennedy Space Center.
NASA has selected its 2018 crop of small businesses to receive funding supporting innovation research and technology transfer, with seven awards going to Arizona.
The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) contracts, which total $43.5 million nationally among 348 awardees, support projects that promise to benefit both NASA's mission and the U.S. economy.
Tucson's AdValue Photonics Inc. received one SBIR contract to develop a pulsed ultraviolet laser, while Tucson's Paragon Space Development Corp. received two contracts toward producing a flexible radiator to cool inflatable habitats and a technology for separating condensates from air.
The remaining SBIRs went to Chandler's Cactus Materials, which will develop a compact semiconductor that improves high-resolution spectrometry, and Scottsdale's ZONA Technology Inc., which will build an improved computer model for flight dynamics.
The two STTR grants will go to Tempe's Alphacore Inc., which will develop a built-in self-test for battery systems, and Phoenix Analysis and Design Technologies, which will research high-performance materials that mimic biological structures. Both will partner with Arizona State University.
SBIR Phase I contracts last six months. STTR Phase I contracts last for 13 months. Both offer a maximum funding of $125,000.
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