A small Wheat Ridge company has landed three NASA awards to develop devices that could be used on deep-space missions and for maneuvering satellites.
TDA Research projects that caught NASA’s attention are an exercise machine that can help prevent astronaut heart and bone problems on lengthy zero-gravity missions, a propulsion system for tiny satellites that currently can’t be repositioned once they are in orbit, and a water/ ice heat exchanger that can keep spacecraft temperatures comfy.
Nearly 2,000 small-business proposals were submitted in the competition, which supports work on technology that has potential. Of the 300 proposals accepted, 11 were won by eight Colorado companies. Three were awarded to TDA.
“We’re a chemical research and development company, but we only barely fit in that category,” said John Wright, TDA’s chief technology officer. “Basically, we invent things.”
Wright is one of TDA’s founding members. Located near Ward Road and West 52nd Avenue, TDA was formed in 1987 by several employees of the former Solar Energy Research Institute — now the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
TDA, which has 85 employees, serves a number of military and aerospace customers and earns a share of its $11.6 million in annual revenues from NASA projects.
By next summer, TDA must prove the technology of its three Phase I NASA proposals. Each project carries a stipend of up to $125,000.
“Only 40 percent will get to Phase II,” when the technology is ready for transfer to NASA or a NASA collaborator, Wright said. “The things that get funded are the ones that make sense.”
NASA’s partnership with small businesses and universities through the program “brings these space technologies to the marketplace, helping startups and small businesses create new jobs . . . while meeting NASA’s current and future mission needs,” said Michael Gazarik, NASA space technology director.
TDA’s Jim Nabity is working with John Daily of the University of Colorado at Boulder on a solid-fuel thruster that can be used in nano- and micro-satellites — orbiters that weigh less than 220 pounds.
“They have no thrusters today,” said Nabity, who is TDA’s project manager. Once the tiny satellites are in orbit, only tiny puffs are needed to improve their positions.
Nabity also is working with CU’s David Klaus on a heat exchanger with no moving parts that features a radiator-type system to control the cabin and avionics in a spacecraft.
TDA senior engineer Douwe Bruinsma is working on a programmable force generator that can give astronauts a workout critical to their health.
Astronauts spend time reconfiguring the current resistive exercise device to their range of motion. Bruinsma’s device allows astronauts to control the amount of force because the force that is generated can be adjusted automatically with the range of motion.
The generator also could be used in the strength training and physical therapy fields, Bruinsma said.
Ann Schrader: 303-954-1967 or aschrader@denverpost.com
