PRESENTERS
Advanced Ionics
Hydrogen for Industrial Materials Production
Advanced Ionics is building game-changing electrolyzers specifically tailored for industrial processes to produce hydrogen for space exploration missions and here on Earth. Hydrogen is one of the most critical raw materials used in extraterrestrial environments. It is required for a variety of applications, including power and propulsion. Hydrogen will also be used as a reducing agent to make industrial materials, such as metals on lunar bases. Improving in-situ access to abundant hydrogen in a small, lightweight configuration that operates in a simple, reliable and predictable manner is a pre-requisite for future space efforts.
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Energetically PBC
Energetically Platform
Energetically PBC is building a new patented class of entrochemical devices to drive a modular, sustainable platform that can provide clean potable water, hydrogen, electricity generation, and heating and cooling solutions. Environmental heat powers the platform, which is designed to be infinitely scalable with no byproducts. The platform requires only water, which does not have to be potable.
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NiveauUp Inc.
eXtreme Fast Charging (XFC) Batteries
NiveauUp Inc. is the definitive leader in developing eXtreme Fast Charging (XFC) battery technology. Original equipment manufacturers have validated NiveauUp’s commercialization-ready samples. For a given specific energy density, their XFC batteries achieve 10-times faster charging and three-times longer life – outperforming what today’s state of the art offers. This technology enables electrified fleets, operating both on the ground and in the air, to harness the most powerful chargers to maximize their ranges and Return on Assets (ROA).
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Noland Industries
ELFRAM Electricity from Artificial Material
Noland Industries proposes a solution to wake up the Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. Spirit is not working due to dying batteries. Opportunity is not working due to Martian sand covering the surface of the solar cell. Neither is physically damaged. This concept deploys an innovative device, ELFRAM. A photon emitter is placed atop the rover’s solar cell to act as a physical Martian sun. Then, the solar cell and photon emitter are enclosed. The enclosure protects the solar cell from the environment and confines photons to the surface of the solar cell, so no photons are wasted.
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Orbital Transport Inc.
Payload Return for SmallSat Missions
Orbital Transport Inc. is developing a solution for small satellite-based cellular and molecular research that requires the return of research materials back to Earth. This will enable new opportunities for space-based research that can be conducted without human intervention, freeing that research from limitations inherent to the International Space Station. It consists of four primary elements: a Payload Return Capsule, self-contained Laboratory Modules, a hosted payload Service Module, and a Propulsion Module. Research materials can be returned to Earth with 95% landing precision and delivered to customers within hours.
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ParaNetics Inc.
ParaNetic Ion Propulsion Drive
The team at ParaNetics Inc. has created a breakthrough in magnetics technology that will fundamentally change multiple applications and products which currently use magnets. Applications include electric motors, sensors, valves and linear acceleration “carrier launch systems” that turn today’s designs inside out. The company has filed patents for the ParaNetic magnetic field generator, an electric aircraft motor based on the ParaNetic field, and several other applications, including an ion propulsion engine smaller than a hockey puck, used to power microsatellites.
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Stofiel Aerospace
Positive Structural Molding
Stofiel Aerospace looks toward eliminating heavier and consumable metals and replacing them with lighter and stronger 3D-printed ceramics that can be constructed and customized as the need arises, or mass-marketed here on Earth. Positive structural molding was designed as a biologically renewable resource. This allows for in-situ construction of complex ceramics through common additive manufacturing processes. Using various construction methods for the mold and ceramics allows this new manufacturing capability to adapt to changing environments and uses.
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Xenesis
Software Defined Optical Comms
Xenesis has developed the World’s first Software Defined Optical Communications Terminal (SDOT). Plenty of companies have flight-tested optical terminals. Xenesis is the first to offer a truly “standards agnostic comms terminal,” allowing any user to incorporate optical comms into any ConOps from LEO to Cislunar/Mars and between. The USAF/AFRL, Airbus and many LEO satellite operators have adopted this technology. Xenesis’ clients have chosen to use their hardware and services to achieve low latency, high data-rate throughput at a 10-times cost advantage over existing RF solutions.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Frank Gruber | Co-Founder and Co-CEO | Established
Frank Gruber is a CEO, entrepreneur, new media journalist, startup adviser, public speaker and angel investor. Author of “Startup Mixology: Tech Cocktail’s Guide to Building, Growing and Celebrating Startup Success,” Gruber is perhaps best known as co-founder of Tech.Co (formerly Tech Cocktail), which he led from 2006 through MVF Global’s acquisition of the enterprise in 2018.
An early blogger and one of the first contributors to TechCrunch, Frank has had the pleasure of sharing a stage and a microphone with some of the most noteworthy entrepreneurs in history during his interviews with thought-leaders from some of theworld’s most successful businesses. His work has appeared on HuffPo, Fortune, ReadWrite and more. Before his success with TechCo, Gruber spent time at AOL, Tribune and Classified Ventures, where he built and launched products for the masses along with his startup efforts. In 2018, he co.founded Established, a consultancy to help organizations with strategy, communications and innovation programs aimed at helping them achieve their goals. Established manages its innovative startup program, Startup of the Year, a competition, a community, and a resource focused on fostering connections.
Gruber is also the managing partner of Established Ventures, which invests in startups through an investment community that he created to support some of the top companies that come through the program. A founding member of the first network-driven venture firm, the NextGen Venture Partners, he continues to invest in startups through NextGen. Frank currently pulls double duty hosting two podcasts, “Somewhat Frank” and “Startup of the Year,” both launched in 2018. You can follow him on Twitter @FrankGruber and Instagram @FrankGruber.
As the entrepreneurial aerospace ecosystem continues to evolve, NASA recognizes that public-private partnerships produce greater impact. SBIR Ignite is a new way for small businesses that have a commercially-viable technology idea to use NASA as a stepping stone in their path towards commercial success. With a greater emphasis on commercialization, SBIR Ignite funds U.S. early-stage, high-risk technology development to help make companies and their technologies more attractive to private sector investors, customers, and partners.
NASA is fully committed to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) for our entire workforce and all our workplaces.
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NASA iTech searches for and identifies advancements in technologies that are solving problems on Earth and have the potential to address existing challenges to enable NASA missions.
Join an elite group of inventors and entrepreneurs who have participated in this program. Browse through past NASA iTech events, watch archived livestream broadcasts, and learn about our alumni and their innovative technologies.
Investors are a key part of the NASA iTech program. From being involved in evaluations and events, to getting some of the best deal-flow you'd ever imagine, if you are an investor we invite you to connect with us to learn how to get involved.
From aerospace to biotech, electronics manufacturers and more, we invite industry leaders to work with us. You will meet the most promising innovators out there. Our industry participants have sourced new partnerships and investments via NASA iTech.
"Although public space agencies like NASA and major aerospace companies worldwide continue to be the driving forces behind humanity’s journey to Mars, an increasing number of startups…are jumping in to provide critical supporting technologies.
When we do finally put a person on Mars, don’t be surprised if many of the machines and devices that make it possible are stamped with company names and logos you’ve never heard of. Just as it takes hundreds of companies of all sizes to create and maintain our physical infrastructure here on Earth, so too will it take many ideas and many voices to build infrastructure on Mars that supports exploration and, ultimately, habitation."
FORBES Magazine
September 2018
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The material contained in this document is based upon work supported by a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grant or cooperative agreement. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of NASA.