Delivery Order 80AFRC18D0006-80AFRC21F0047

This is a firm fixed-price delivery order contract awarded by the Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC), a civilian agency of the U.S. government, to Up Aerospace Inc. for a "SPECIAL PROJECT STUDY FOR INTEGRATION AND FLIGHT OF ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING OF THERMAL PROTECTION SYSTEMS (AM-TPS) PAYLOAD." The contract has a ceiling value of $76,423 and an ultimate completion date of January 14, 2022. This delivery order contract is part of a larger Flight and Payload Integration Services...

This is a firm-fixed-price Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to Powdermet Inc., a for-profit manufacturing company. The contract, valued at $124,455.00, is for the design and fabrication of an integral thermal protection system (TPS) cryogenic storage tank using integrated materials computational engineering. The project aims to develop a multilayered thermally insulating syntactic foam core structure...

Purdue University, a leading research institution, was awarded a $212,555.88 contract by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to develop a new additive manufacturing (AM) technology capable of printing heterogeneous materials with high solids loadings. This is a revolutionary advancement, as it will enable the printing of propellants previously considered unprintable, allowing for the creation of unique geometries that can improve propellant burning rates. The contract...

This contract award to Touchstone Research Laboratory, Ltd., a small business entity, is part of the SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) program Phase I under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The $124,999 firm-fixed-price contract aims to develop a hybrid material form that combines a metal matrix composite (MMC) prepreg tape with an ultrasonic additive manufacturing process. This approach is intended to result in enhanced lightweight, cost-effective metallic...

This federal contract award is for Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) for NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD). The prime contractor, Fiber Materials Inc. (FMI), is a manufacturer of high-temperature composite materials located in Biddeford, Maine. The contract, a Delivery Order valued at $1,057,499.60, is for the development and Phase 1 testing of a 3-D Medium Density Carbon Phenolic (3MDCP) material. FMI has extensive heritage in providing thermal protection components, advanced composite...

This is a $123,687 Phase I STTR contract awarded by the NASA Shared Services Center to Advratech, LLC, a small business, for an empirical optimization framework for additive manufacturing (AM) processes. The project aims to leverage in-situ sensor data and process parameters to construct a "physics-capturing" empirical model that can be used to quantify AM process uncertainty, analyze sensitivities, and optimize each layer of selective laser melting (SLM) builds in real-time. The...

This is a delivery order awarded to Fiber Materials Inc., a manufacturer of high-temperature composite materials, by NASA's Ames Research Center. The $764,858.25 firm-fixed-price contract is for the procurement and manufacturing of thermal protection system (TPS) components, tooling, and associated engineering services to support science missions within NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The work, which will take place in Biddeford, Maine, is part of a larger $24 million Indefinite Delivery...

This is a definitive cost-plus-fixed-fee contract awarded to Fiber Materials Inc., a subsidiary of Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc., by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). The $5,028,966.00 contract is for the characterization and performance testing of hypersonic thermal protection composite material systems, with a completion date of September 30, 2027. Fiber Materials Inc. has extensive experience producing advanced composite materials and thermal protection systems for aerospace...

This $500,000 grant awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to the University of Pittsburgh aims to develop a part-scale process-microstructure simulation tool to predict the microstructure evolution of Inconel 718 processed by powder bed laser fusion, a type of additive manufacturing (commonly referred to as 3D printing). The project seeks to overcome the challenges in certifying additive manufacturing parts due to the variability in microstructure and material...

This NASA-sponsored STTR Phase I contract was awarded to Keystone Synergistic Enterprises, LLC, a small business, to investigate methods for close-out of large, liquid rocket engine nozzle coolant channels using robotic laser and pulsed-arc additive manufacturing. The $124,774 firm-fixed-price contract will study the interface strength and metallurgical characteristics between copper and nickel alloys, as well as thermal modeling and stability of the interface. The contract supports NASA's...