WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th March, 2021) Some 365 small businesses, many minority or women owned, will receive initial funding for technology projects in a $45 million program announced by NASA on Thursday.
"NASA selected proposals to receive funding based on their technical merit and commercial potential. The selections span the breadth of NASA missions to empower the agency's work in human exploration, space technology, science, and aeronautics," the US space agency said in a press release.
The firms operate in 38 US states, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico and include women-owned, minority-owned and veteran-owned small businesses, as well as Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and other types of research organizations, the release said.
Funding recipients cited in the release include Syrnatec, a woman-owned small firm and first-time NASA awardee based the state of Connecticut. The firm will develop radiation tolerant, high-voltage, high-power diodes, a technology needed to manage and distribute power.
Another grantee, Qubitekk in the state of California will partner with the University of New Mexico, a Hispanic-serving institution. Together, they will develop a compact hardware package that provides a reliable calibration tool for detectors of quantum-sized information, the release said.
More than 30 percent of the awards announced on Thursday will go to first-time recipients of NASA funding, the release added.
