WASHINGTON - NASA has selected 120 proposals for negotiation of Phase 2 contract awards in the Small Business Innovation Research program, known as SBIR. The selected projects have a total value of approximately $72 million. NASA will award the contracts to 102 small high technology firms in 27 states.

NASA's Innovative Partnerships Program - with offices at NASA Headquarters in Washington and all of the agency's field centers - collaborates with U.S. industry to develop pioneering technologies, infuse them into agency missions and transition them into commercially available products and services.

The SBIR program supports NASA's mission directorates by working with them to competitively select ventures that address critical research and technology needs for agency programs and projects. The effort addresses specific technology gaps in mission programs and strives to complement other agency research investments. Program results have benefited NASA efforts, including modern air traffic control systems, Earth observing spacecraft, the space shuttle, the International Space Station and rovers on Mars.

Some research topic areas among this group of selected proposals include:

- The development of more effective multi-disciplinary design, analysis and optimization tools that will benefit flight vehicles ranging from subsonic aircraft to rockets. - A new data architecture that will allow engineers to design software that better quantifies spacecraft data. - Radiation hardened, stackable memory modules that will increase data storage for science missions and enable increased computing and storage capacities for space-based systems.

The SBIR program is a highly competitive, three-phase award system. It provides qualified small businesses - including those owned by women and the disadvantaged - with opportunities to propose unique ideas that meet specific research and development needs of the federal government.

Phase 1 is a feasibility study to evaluate the scientific and technical merit of an idea. Awards are for as long as six months in amounts up to $100,000. Phase 2 expands on the results of the development in Phase 1. Awards are for as long as two years in amounts up to $600,000. Phase 3 is for the commercialization of the results of Phase 2 and requires the use of private sector or non-SBIR federal funding.

Participants submitted 243 Phase 2 proposals. The criteria used to select the winning proposals included technical merit and innovation, Phase 1 results, value to NASA, commercial potential and company capabilities.

NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., manages the program for the Innovative Partnership Program office. NASA's 10 field centers manage individual projects.

For a list of selected companies, visit:

http://sbir.nasa.gov