NASA Announces New Tipping Point Partnerships for Moon and Mars Technologies

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA has selected 14 American companies as partners whose technologies will help enable the agency's Moon to Mars exploration approach.

The selections are based on NASA's fourth competitive Tipping Point solicitation and have a combined total award value of about $43.2 million. This investment in the U.S. space industry, including small businesses across the country, will help bring the technologies to market and ready them for use by NASA.

"These promising technologies are at a 'tipping point' in their development, meaning NASA's investment is likely the extra push a company needs to significantly mature a capability," said Jim Reuter, associate administrator of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD). "These are important technologies necessary for sustained exploration of the Moon and Mars. As the agency focuses on landing astronauts on the Moon by 2024 with the Artemis program, we continue to prepare for the next phase of lunar exploration that feeds forward to Mars."

The selections address technology areas such as cryogenic propellant production and management, sustainable energy generation, storage and distribution, efficient and affordable propulsion systems, autonomous operations, rover mobility, and advanced avionics. The selected proposals, organized by technology area, are:

Cryogenic Propellant Production and Management

    --  Blue Origin LLC of Kent, Washington, $10 million A ground demonstration
        of hydrogen and oxygen liquefaction and storage, representing rocket and
        spacecraft propellant that could be produced on the Moon. The
        demonstration could help inform a large-scale propellant production
        plant suitable for the lunar surface.



    --  OxEon Energy LLC of North Salt Lake, Utah, $1.8 million OxEon Energy
        will work with the Colorado School of Mines to integrate an electrolysis
        technology to process ice and separate the hydrogen and oxygen. The
        molecules could then be cooled to produce fuel for cislunar transport.
        This technology could provide a flexible and scalable solution for
        future in-situ resource utilization operations on the Moon.



    --  Skyre Inc. of East Hartford, Connecticut, $2.6 million Skyre, also known
        as Sustainable Innovations, along with partner Meta Vista USA LLC, will
        develop a system to make propellant from permanently frozen water
        located at the Moon's poles, including processes to separate the
        hydrogen and oxygen, keep the product extremely cold and use hydrogen as
        a refrigerant to liquefy oxygen.

    --  SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, $3 million SpaceX will collaborate with
        NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to develop
        and test coupler prototypes - or nozzles - for refueling spacecraft such
        as the company's Starship vehicle. A cryogenic fluid coupler for
        large-scale in-space propellant transfer is an important technology to
        aid sustained exploration efforts on the Moon and Mars.

Sustainable Energy Generation, Storage and Distribution

    --  Infinity Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Inc. of Windsor, Connecticut, $4
        millionThe company will collaborate with NASA's Johnson Space Center in
        Houston to develop a scalable, modular and flexible power and energy
        product that utilizes new manufacturing methods to reduce cost and
        improve reliability. The technology could be used for lunar rovers,
        surface equipment and habitats.



    --  Paragon Space Development Corporation of Houston, $2 million Paragon
        Space Development Corporation will work with Johnson and NASA's Glenn
        Research Center in Cleveland to develop an environmental control and
        life support system as well as a thermal control system for lunar
        missions that maintain acceptable operating temperatures throughout the
        Moon's day and night cycle. The design of these systems could be adapted
        for crewed missions to Mars.

    --  TallannQuest LLC of Sachse, Texas, $2 million Working with NASA's Jet
        Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the company, also known
        as Apogee Semiconductor, will develop a flexible, radiation-hardened
        switching power controller capable of being configured based on a
        mission's power needs. This technology could be used for missions to the
        Moon, Mars, Jupiter's moon Europa, and other destinations.

Efficient and Affordable Propulsion Systems

    --  Accion Systems Inc. of Boston, $3.9 million The first interplanetary
        CubeSats, NASA's MarCO-A and B, used a set of cold gas thrusters for
        attitude control and course corrections during their cruise to Mars,
        alongside the Mars InSight lander. Accion and JPL will partner to mature
        a propulsion system to demonstrate the same capabilities as those
        required for the MarCO mission, but with a smaller and lighter system
        that uses less power. The propulsion system could enable more science
        opportunities with these small, flexible platforms.



    --  CU Aerospace LLC of Champaign, Illinois, $1.7 million CU Aerospace,
        NearSpace Launch and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will
        build and test a 6-unit CubeSat equipped with two different propulsion
        systems. These systems were developed with NASA Small Business
        Innovation Research (SBIR) funding and offer high performance, low cost
        and safe pre-launch processing. The company plans to deliver the
        flight-ready CubeSat to NanoRacks for launch and deployment.

    --  ExoTerra Resource LLC of Littleton, Colorado, $2 million  ExoTerra will
        build, test and launch a 12-unit CubeSat with a compact, high impulse
        solar electric propulsion module. Once flight-ready, the system will be
        demonstrated in-space as the CubeSat moves from low-Earth orbit to the
        radiation belts surrounding Earth. This small electric propulsion system
        could open up the inner solar system for targeted science exploration
        missions, using affordable spacecraft that range from 44 to 440 pounds.

Autonomous Operations

    --  Blue Canyon Technologies Inc. of Boulder, Colorado, $4.9 million As
        access to space increases, so does the need for ground resources, such
        as tracking stations. With an in-space demonstration, Blue Canyon
        Technologies will mature an autonomous navigation software solution for
        SmallSats and CubeSats so they can traverse space without "talking" to
        Earth.

Rover Mobility

    --  Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh, $2 million Astrobotic and Carnegie
        Mellon University will work with JPL and NASA's Kennedy Space Center in
        Florida to develop small rover "scouts" that can host payloads and
        interface with multiple large landers. This project received previous
        NASA funding through SBIR awards. The new partnership will develop more
        mature payload interfaces and increase rover capabilities.

Advanced Avionics

    --  Intuitive Machines LLC of Houston, $1.3 million Development of a
        spacecraft vision processing computer and software to reduce the cost
        and schedule required for deploying optical, or laser, navigation
        capabilities on government and commercial missions.

    --  Luna Innovations of Blacksburg, Virginia, $2 million Luna Innovations is
        partnering with Sierra Nevada Corporation, ILC Dover and Johnson to
        prove the viability of sensors that monitor the structural health and
        safety of inflatable space habitats located in orbit or on the surface
        of other worlds.

Through firm-fixed-price contracts, STMD will make milestone payments over a performance period of up to 36 months. Each industry partner is required to contribute a minimum percent, based on the company's size, of the total cost for each project.

STMD develops transformative space technologies to enable future missions. Tipping Point projects are managed by programs within STMD and in some cases include collaborations with NASA centers.

NASA's Artemis lunar exploration program includes sending a suite of new science instruments and technology demonstrations to study the Moon, landing the first woman and next man on the lunar surface by 2024, and establishing a sustained presence by 2028. The agency will leverage its Artemis experience and technologies to prepare for the next giant leap - sending astronauts to Mars.

For more information about NASA's Tipping Point solicitation, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/solicitations/tipping_points

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SOURCE NASA