Thursday, February 19, 2004

Paragon designing for manned spacecraft

Two federal grants give the go-ahead to the local company developed by two of the first Biospherians.

TEYA VITU

Tucson Citizen

A Tucson aerospace and environmental technology company will test and build new technologies for the next generation of manned spacecraft with nearly $140,000 in recently awarded federal Small Business Innovation and Research grants.

The two Paragon Space Development Corp. projects could eventually end up on spaceships bound for Mars, the international space station or future lunar bases.

Paragon, 2700 E. Executive Drive, will test designs for a new radiator system that will combine into one unit the structure and radiator that wards heat off the spacecraft, considerably reducing the weight of a spacecraft, Paragon Chief Executive Taber MacCallum said.

The second project is an enhanced heat pump that would work more efficiently than current technology in very high temperature differences between the interior and exterior.

Each SBIR grant from NASA amounts to about $68,000.

MacCallum and Paragon President Jane Poynter were part of the first crew to live in Biosphere 2 in the early 1990s. Their company has produced small biospheres (aquariums) for experiments that have flown on five space shuttle missions, two Mir flights and one sent to the international space station.

"This would be the first time we would be making something for the spacecraft itself," MacCallum said.

A $5,000 FAST grant from the Arizona Department of Commerce allowed Paragon to bring in a consultant to research and write four SBIR grant applications, two of which NASA awarded. The Federal and State Technology grant was funded 50-50 by the U.S. Small Business Administration and ADOC's Commerce and Economic Development Commission, which is funded through the Arizona Lottery.

"It's a small amount of money but it's the difference that makes a difference," MacCallum said, adding that his small, 15-person company does not have the manpower to properly write grant applications.

Paragon will use one SBIR grant for analyzing and modeling how their designs for an integrated radiator work. Radiators in current spacecraft are separate components added to the skin of the spacecraft.

"Every pound is so expensive to get into space," MacCallum said. "By doing the double duty of cooling as well as supporting the spacecraft load, the overall vehicle can be lighter, and, therefore cheaper.

"If NASA likes it, there could be a second-phase grant to build a prototype," MacCallum said.

For the other SBIR grant, Paragon is building a prototype Enhanced Vapor Compression Cycle - a heat pump that will operate efficiently even as temperature differences from outside to inside reach hundreds of degrees. Current spacecraft heat pumps lose efficiency as temperature differences increase, he said.