ROANOKE, Va., (Luna Innovations PR)–Luna Innovations Incorporated (NASDAQ:LUNA), a global leader in advanced fiber optic-based technology, today shared that it has been selected as one of only 14 companies to partner with NASA in the agency’s “Moon to Mars” exploration studies. With a $2 million award from NASA’s fourth competitive “Tipping Point solicitation,” Luna’s fiber optic sensors will be embedded within inflatable space habitats to monitor their structural health and safety.

Astrobotic, Blue Origin, ExoTerra, Paragon and SpaceX among contract awardees for advanced technologies

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has selected 14 American companies as partners whose technologies will help enable the agency’s Moon to Mars exploration approach.

The selections are based on NASA’s fourth competitive Tipping Point solicitation and have a combined total award value of about $43.2 million. This investment in the U.S. space industry, including small businesses across the country, will help bring the technologies to market and ready them for use by NASA.

NASA has selected eight research projects focused on in-situ resource utilization for funding under its Small Business Innovation Research Phase I program.

The selected projects include:

• Extraterrestrial Metals Processing — Pioneer Astronautics
• Robotic ISRU Construction of Planetary Landing and Launch Pad — Honeybee Robotics
• Extruded Clay-Based Regoliths for Construction on Mars, Phobos and NEAs — Deep Space Industries
• In-Situ Generation of Polymer Concrete Construction Materials — Luna Innovations
• ISP3: In-Situ Printing Plastic Production System for Space Additive Manufacturing — Altius Space Machines
  
• Compact In-Situ Polyethylene Production from Carbon Dioxide — Opus 12
• Micro-Channel Reactor for Processing Carbon Dioxide to Ethylene — Reactive Innovations
  
• OpenSWIFT-SDR for STRS Polyethylene Production from In-Situ Resources in Microchannel Reactors — TDA Research

Full descriptions of the projects are below.

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