Alpha Space Lands Government and Commercial Contracts for ISS Testing

Officials at Alpha Space Test and Research Alliance (Alpha Space), an advanced technology company offering materials testing in space, announced today that it has signed back-to-back contracts with NASA and AZ Technology Corporation (AZ Technology) utilizing the company’s Materials International Space Station (ISS) Experiment (MISSE) – a materials research flight facility on the ISS.

Alpha Space signed into agreement a new government contract with NASA allowing NASA and other government agencies to buy – through NASA – Alpha Space’s commercial services in support of MISSE.

“Alpha Space is proud to offer enhanced services to NASA and NASA-sponsored experiments,” stated Alpha Space President, Stephanie Murphy. “Many of our services have not been available to the materials science community until now, and we are excited to implement this next level of advanced research with NASA as our partner.”

The company’s enhanced services include a plug-and-play model which can view/expose four directions in space, monthly high definition photographs of exposed materials, power and data in near real time, a suite of sensor data and additional customization.

“NASA is excited to enter into this cooperation with Alpha Space to advance materials science testing,” stated Julie Robinson, Chief Scientist for the ISS Program at NASA. “The MISSE testing facility and its advanced services open the door to new ways of testing for both NASA’s exploration-related research as well as research to help industry prove new technology and materials on the ISS National Laboratory.”

This five-year, $4.9 million contract follows the company’s first cooperative agreement with NASA to allow MISSE a permanent external location on the ISS to host both government and private industry experiments.

On the heels of securing the NASA contract, Alpha Space also landed its first commercial contract with AZ Technology, a woman- and service-disabled veteran-owned small business delivering comprehensive technology solutions and applications for science and engineering from concept through production.

AZ Technologies will test the effectiveness of their coatings in the space environment, with correlations of the effects of Atomic Oxygen on samples, providing necessary information for evaluating product improvements.

“AZ Technology’s rich history in spaceflight experiments dates back to LDEF and experiments placed on the exterior of the Russian Mir Space Station. We have been involved in the MISSE Program (prior to Alpha Space ownership) from the very beginning, testing advanced materials coatings for spacecraft,” stated AZ Technology’s President and CEO, Lynn Leeper. “Our samples to be flown on the inaugural flight of the MISSE Flight Facility will be a continuation of these experiments, continuing AZ Technology’s commitment to providing our customers a cutting edge product.”

Unlike previous MISSE programs, MISSE is now a privatized, commercial facility owned and operated by Alpha Space with a permanent placement on the ISS. The facility and its first set of experiments have been manifested to fly to the International Space Station in September of 2017 on the SpaceX Dragon resupply vehicle’s flight SpaceX-13.

Alpha Space is a proud sponsor of the 2016 SpaceCom Expo taking place in Houston this November. Engineers will be present at the company’s exhibition booth to discuss your experiment needs.