Mary-Louise Hoffman
Four companies have been selected to receive $17M in Small Business Innovation Research Phase II funds to further develop systems for potential use on NASA's lunar exploration mission beginning in 2024.
Fibertek, Qualtech Systems, Pioneer Astronautics and Protoinnovations began efforts to mature technology platforms under the Artemis program using initial agency grants from the SBIR/Small Business Technology Transfer program, NASA said Wednesday.
Each awardee could secure $2.5M to $5M for the system maturation phase.
Fibertek will work on an optical communications technology designed to integrate with small spacecraft and transmit data from the moon to Earth.
Qualtech seeks to build an autonomous system for monitoring the performace of manned or unmanned space vehicles such as the lunar Gateway outpost.
Pioneer Astronautics aims to demonstrate oxygen and steel production hardware to support in-situ resource utilization efforts on the moon, while Protoinnovations will focus on the development of traction control and rover driving systems.
