University of Alabama at Birmingham Wins NASA’s Cold Stowage II Contract

The University of Alabama at Birmingham has been awarded the Cold Stowage II contract from NASA. Under the potential $48.3 million, single award, cost-no-fee contract, the university will deliver a suite of freezers that will maintain a controlled temperature environment for science samples aboard the International Space Station (ISS), as well as to and from low-Earth orbit.

UAB will provide maintenance, sustaining engineering, integration and operations of the freezers. The work will support researchers’ objectives involving temperature-controlled science. The hardware used will maintain sample integrity while at ISS and during transit aboard current and future visiting spacecraft. 

The University of Alabama’s suite of freezers includes Polar, Glacier, Iceberg, Cryo Chiller, Glovebox Freezer, and MERLIN.

In 2018, the University of Alabama at Birmingham Engineering Innovation and Technology Development research group was awarded a multi-year contract from NASA to provide and maintain cold-stowage units for the ISS.

The group has designed and built a series of freezers capable of maintaining temperatures as low as negative 160 degrees Celsius. Each line of freezers meets specific cold-stowage demands, from storing scientific samples to serving as galley refrigerator/freezers for the ISS crew.

The new award contributes to the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s history of supporting the agency’s scientific research and development.