NASA Awards QuesTek Innovations Contract to Develop Space Manufacturing Toolkit

NASA has selected QuesTek Innovations for an Ignite SBIR Phase I award to develop computational tools for materials design and manufacturing in microgravity, announced in a press release. The project will focus on creating ASTRO-Grav, a modeling and optimization framework that integrates simulations with high-throughput experiments to address challenges in space-based fabrication.

ASTRO-Grav is built on QuesTek’s ICMD materials simulation platform and will help identify optimal alloy compositions and process parameters for low-gravity conditions. The toolkit aims to predict how material properties and welding processes behave in space, supporting reliable part fabrication for long-duration missions.

NASA expects the technology to assist astronauts in producing strong and dependable components in orbit and on the lunar surface, contributing to future operations in low Earth orbit, on the Moon, and on Mars.