Three Arizona small businesses are working on technologies for future NASA space missions. The projects are funded by the space agency’s Small Business Innovation Research program.
The companies were among 117 American small businesses receiving funding from NASA.
Tucson-based Paragon Space Development is creating insulation that would protect spacecraft from micro-meteoroids and orbital debris as the craft heads to the moon, Mars and beyond.
STARA Technologies of Gilbert is working on a guided parafoil system that would be used to steer a payload from a sounding rocket to a defined landing location. Sounding rockets are used to launch scientific instruments into space for short flights.
S.D. Miller and Associates, a Flagstaff engineering firm, is developing light-weight heat and radiation insulation to protect spacecraft re-entering Earth’s or another planet’s atmosphere.
All three Arizona firms have worked on NASA projects previously.