NASA-Stennis Story Opportunities; Dec. 3, 2001

Editors and news directors interested in following story opportunities at
Stennis Space Center are
encouraged to contact the NASA Public Affairs Office for more information or
to arrange interviews.

Five Stennis-affiliated companies win Phase II SBIR awards: Stennis Space
Center is
working with five firms that are among 126 whose research proposals were
recently selected by
NASA for negotiation of Phase II contract awards for NASA’s Small Business
Innovation Research
(SBIR) Program. The goals of this NASA program are to stimulate
technological innovation, increase
the use of small business including women-owned and disadvantaged firms in
meeting federal
research and development needs, and increase private-sector
commercialization of innovations
derived from federally funded research. Firms awarded Phase II contracts
with Stennis are AI Signal
Research Inc. of Huntsville, Ala.; AJT and Associates, Inc. of Cape
Canaveral, Fla.; Duncan
Technologies Inc. of Auburn, Calif.; Physical Optics Corp. of Torrance,
Calif.; and WET Labs of
Philomath, Ore.

Stennis Space Center sponsors area schools in 2002 robotics competition:
Although
months away from competition, area students are gearing up to participate in
the 2002 For Inspiration
and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Robotics Competition. This
year, Stennis Space
Center will support six Mississippi teams and one Louisiana team with
financial endorsements or by
providing the teams with mentors to assist in the construction of their
robots. Teams receiving
support from Stennis this year are Choctaw Central High School in
Philadelphia; Piney Woods
School and Provine High School, both located in Jackson; Picayune High
School in Picayune; Warren
Central High School in Vicksburg; Gulfport High School in Gulfport;
and Pearl River High School in Pearl River, La.

MSCI Company Achieves Successful Satellite Launch: DigitalGlobe, a
Mississippi Space
Commerce Initiative (MSCI) company located at Stennis Space Center, has
successfully launched
and deployed the Quickbird high-resolution remote sensing satellite, which
will provide the highest
resolution satellite imagery for the assessment and management of land,
infrastructure and natural
resources available from any commercial system. MSCI is a partnership among
NASA, the State of
Mississippi and The University of Mississippi.