Navy SPAWAR Systems Center Selects Space Micro to Develop UHF Cubesat Antenna

SAN DIEGO, CA – November 9, 2010 – Space Micro Inc, an innovator of radiation hardened microelectronics for space applications, announced today that it has been awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract from Navy PEO Space, SPAWAR Systems Center, San Diego, CA. The contract is to study and develop a low drag UHF antenna for Cubesats and nanosatellites. This proposed antenna must also withstand the damaging effects of radiation in space.

This R&D will potentially meet the needs of many DoD Air Force satellites including the Navy MUOS program. Traditional Cubesat antenna used by University class projects have excessive drag in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), thereby limiting the spacecraft lifetime in orbit. Space Micro has teamed with San Diego Sate University (SDSU), Dr. Satish Sharma’s antenna R&D group on this effort.

David J. Strobel, CEO at Space Micro, said “this is a multidisciplinary project encompassing RF, materials, radiation, mechanical, and aerospace engineering skills for space. We have the organic technology and experience to develop and manufacture this space hardware.”

Cubesats are a rapid growth area which has evolved form earlier University efforts starting with Cal Poly and Stanford. Over 50 Cubesats have been launched with miniaturization now enabling greatly improved capabilities.

About Space Micro Inc.

Space Micro Inc specializes in payload and communications equipment for satellites, and is a pioneer and leader in technologies that enable Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) electronic devices to be deployed in space. Radiation in space is damaging to electronics. Space Micro has developed patented technologies to mitigate radiation effects on state-of-art commercial electronics. Space Micro offers space-qualified radiation hardened microelectronics, from radiation hardened by design (RHBD) technologies to space rated single board computers (RH SBC). Space Micro offers the world’s fastest space radiation hardened line of radiation hardened computers. These space computers include the Proton200k™ DSP-based RH SBC, Proton300k™ SRAM-based reconfigurable space computer (RH RCC), and Proton400k™ multi-core PowerPC-based radiation hardened SBC.

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