Six Small Businesses Receive Sequential SBIR Phase 2 Funding From NASA

NASA has selected six small businesses to continue working on technologies that will be used for various applications.

Makel Engineering, Xiomas Technologies, Protoinnovations, Astrobic Technology, Mentium Technologies and Flight Works were awarded Phase 1 and Phase 2 Small Business Innovation Research contracts and will receive sequential Phase 2 SBIR contracts to continue advancing their solutions. The awards are worth nearly $27 million in total.

Makel and Xiomas were selected for their solutions designed to address wildfires while Protoinnovations, Astrobic and Mentium were chosen for their robotics solutions supporting the Artemis program. Flight Works will support the Small Spacecraft Technology program, NASA said.

For the specific technologies, Makel will further develop a chemical microsensor instrument package that will allow uncrewed aerial vehicles to detect chemical and particulate detection for pre-fire, active-fire and post-fire studies. Xiomas will continue working on a thermal mapping measurement system that can be deployed on UAVs and small satellites to improve active fire detection and wildfire studies.

Protoinnovations and Astrobic will develop technologies that will improve rover capabilities and communications while Mentium will continue working on a neuromorphic chip that can withstand radiation. Flight Works will work on its propellant pump technology, which has potential use cases for orbital maneuvering vehicles.

The six companies submitted white papers in early 2022 when NASA’s SBIR program sought information from small businesses working in key technology areas. The space agency started providing sequential funding in 2020 to support its goals of accelerating the development of technologies designed to meet the government’s needs.

NASA uses the SBIR and Small Business Technology Transfer programs to gather novel solutions to some of the agency’s pressing challenges. The NASA Ames Research Center manages the contracting opportunities.