Delivery Order FA945110D0227-0001

This federal contract award was issued by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Shared Services Center to Boston Micromachines Corporation, a leading provider of advanced microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based mirror products. The $123,785.00 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program Phase I contract supports the development of a design and manufacturing approach for a small-stroke, high-precision deformable mirror scalable to 10,000 actuators. This effort aims to...

Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been awarded a $585,000 research grant by a civilian federal agency to develop the Adaptive Deformable Mirrors to Enable Deployable Diffractive Optics (ADROIT) system. The project, led by Professor Kerri Cahoy, addresses critical challenges in deploying membrane-based diffractive optics in space, including Fresnel zone plates and photon sieves. These optical systems are prone to wavefront error (WFE) introduced by membrane wrinkles, folds, and frame...

This is a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II contract awarded by the Shared Services Center, a civilian agency, to Boston Micromachines Corporation, a small business manufacturer, for $1,248,659.00. The contract is focused on developing high-precision, deformable mirrors and associated electronics to enable advanced wavefront control for space-based coronagraphs that can detect Earth-like exoplanets. The research aims to overcome manufacturing and lifetime challenges with current...

This is a $99,999.94 grant awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to Northwestern University, in collaboration with the University of Illinois (UIUC), to develop a game-changing technology for large deployable optical quality mirrors. The project aims to combine a flying magnetic write head with a magnetic smart material coating the back of the mirror to enable post-deployment figure corrections to the level of 1/20th of a wavelength. This grant is part of NASA's...

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) awarded a $447,949.88 grant to The Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri to develop and test a novel class of low-voltage thin-film actuators based on electroactive polymers. This research aims to address the need for adjustable mirror control in future high-resolution X-ray missions, as electroactive polymers can produce high strains at low voltages to correct deformations in submillimeter-thick mirror shells. The grant has four...

This is a $124,844 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contract awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to Boston Micromachines Corporation, a leading provider of advanced microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based mirror products. The contract is focused on developing solutions to address two key challenges in scaling up MEMS deformable mirrors (DMs) to array sizes of 4,000 actuators or more - reducing manufacturing yield losses due to keyhole voids...

This is a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contract awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to Arctic Slope Technical Services, Inc., an Alaskan Native Corporation-owned small disadvantaged business. The $125,000 firm-fixed-price contract is to demonstrate the feasibility of using selective laser melting (SLM) to produce a 3-meter symmetrical radius of curvature isogrid mirror substrate for use in ultraviolet, optical, and infrared (UVOIR) telescopes....

This is a SBIR Phase I contract awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to Iris AO, Inc., a small business, for the development of a 1,015-segment microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) deformable mirror (DM). The goal is to advance the state-of-the-art MEMS DM technology to create flight-like hardware with picometer-level resolution, enabling high-contrast imaging for the detection of Earth-sized exoplanets. The $125,000 fixed-price contract will fund the initial...

This is a $749,714 firm-fixed-price contract awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to Semplastics EHC LLC, a small business, under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II program. The contract is for the development of a novel, innovative ceramic material that can be used to produce large, lightweight, and cost-effective mirrors for next-generation telescopes. Semplastics will deliver four large mirrors up to 0.6 meters in diameter, with coated and...

This is a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contract awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to Microscale, Inc., a minority-owned, small disadvantaged business. The contract, valued at $124,909, aims to develop a new manufacturing approach for deformable mirrors (DMs) by batch fabricating the stack actuator array. This innovation leverages Microscale's experience in developing stack actuator DM systems with integrated ASIC driver electronics, enabling...