Derek Martin and Ryan Cox work on robotic instrumentation with the BluHaptics team in Seattle. (University of Washington Photo / Conrado Tapado)
Space projects led by two small businesses headquartered in Washington state — Seattle-based BluHaptics and Bothell-based Tethers Unlimited — are among 128 proposals selected by NASA to receive grants of up to $750,000.
SBIR Phase II contracts provide maximum funding of $750,000 over 24 months for the further development of projects that support NASA’s future space exploration missions while also benefiting the U.S. economy.
Tethers Unlimited’s Refabricator is a recycler and 3-D printer in one unit, which is about the size of a dorm-room refrigerator. This is the tech demonstration unit that’s been undergoing tests at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The unit is to go to the space station next year. (NASA Photo / Emmett Given)
Bothell, Wash.-based Tethers Unlimited is getting a shot at helping to create an advanced fabrication facility that could manufacture and recycle 3-D printed items in space.
Tethers Unlimited and two other companies will have 18 months to deliver a prototype for the multi-material fabrication lab, or FabLab. The other companies are Interlog Corp. of Anaheim, Calif.; and Techshot of Greenville, Ind.
About $10.2 million has been set aside for the prototyping phase of the project. After the prototype is delivered, NASA will select partners for further development of the technology.
California-based SSL, formerly known as Space Systems Loral, says it’ll receive continued funding from NASA for an on-orbit satellite assembly program known as Dragonfly. SSL and its partners, including Bothell, Wash.-based Tethers Unlimited, recently completed a successful ground demonstration of the Dragonfly system, which is designed to assemble pieces of space hardware in orbit robotically. The next step is to move forward with a detailed design for a semi-autonomous assembly system that could be sent into space sometime in the 2020s.
Nanosatellites tumble through space after their deployment from the International Space Station. Kymeta is working on flat-panel communication antennas that could be placed on such satellites. (NASA Photo)
Flat-panel antennas that are tiny enough to fit on a nanosatellite and a 3-D printer that can recycle space station trash are among the Seattle-area projects that have won seed money in NASA’s latest round of grant-making.
They’re just a couple of the 133 proposals selected for contracts of up to $750,000 under NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program, or SBIR. But what’s notable about Kymeta’s mini-antennas and Tethers Unlimited Inc.’s ERASMUS plastics recycler and 3-D printer is that they could spawn products for use on Earth as well as in space.
An artist’s conception shows a future satellite building scaffolding from carbon-fiber composites. (Credit: Tethers Unlimited)
A division of Tethers Unlimited Inc., a space technology company based in Bothell, Wash., says it has signed a contract with a big-name spacecraft provider to demonstrate how future satellites could build their own frameworks in space.
The deal calls for Tethers Unlimited’s business division, known as Firmamentum, to fly its manufacturing hardware on a telecommunications satellite as part of Space Systems Loral’s Dragonfly program. Space Systems Loral is one of the world’s leading builders of satellites and spacecraft systems.
Firmamentum is working on a technology known as the “Trusselator,” which is designed to fabricate large, lightweight truss structures out of carbon-fiber composites. Such structures could help support antennas, sensors, solar arrays and other components.
Tethers Unlimited Inc.’s Hydros thruster fires during a test. (Credit: TUI)
Tethers Unlimited Inc. says it’s won $2.2 million in contracts from NASA and Millennium Space Systems to provide its miniaturized, water-fueled Hydros thrusters for satellite missions.
The company, based in Bothell, Wash., is developing the Hydros as a safe-to-launch propulsion system for CubeSats and other small satellites. The thrusters measure about 4 inches wide. They run on hydrogen and oxygen, which can be produced in space by splitting water molecules (H2O) using solar-powered electrolysis.
Hydrogen and oxygen gases are burned in the thrusters to propel satellites during maneuvers. The propulsion method is similar to the principle that’s been used for the space shuttle main engines and Blue Origin’s BE-3 rocket engine, but on a much smaller scale.
Tethers Unlimited says the water-electrolysis method makes it possible for tiny satellites to carry a fuel source that’s non-explosive, non-toxic and unpressurized.
TUI/Firmamentum’s Positrusion device turns 3-D-printed items into plastic filament. The recycler would be paired with a 3-D printer in Firmamentum’s Refabricator. (Credit: Tethers Unlimited)
Firmamentum, a division of Tethers Unlimited Inc. in Bothell, Wash., says it has won $750,000 in NASA funding to build a combination 3-D printer and plastic recycler for the International Space Station.
The device, known as the Refabricator, is due to be delivered to NASA next year, said Rob Hoyt, president of TUI/Firmamentum.
“This is an experiment to see how many times you can recycle plastic in the microgravity environment before the polymers break down,” Hoyt told GeekWire today at the Space Frontier Foundation’s NewSpace 2016 conference in Seattle.
Firmamentum’s plastic-recycling process, known as Positrusion, was the focus of earlier experiments funded by NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program, or SBIR. Hoyt said the most recent award was made last Friday, with backing from SBIR as well as the In-Space Manufacturing project at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.
Another company, California-based Made In Space, already has built a couple of 3-D printers that went into use on the space station. The 3-D printers melt down plastic filament and deposit tiny squirts of the stuff in a computer-controlled pattern to produce tools and other objects.
