In 2018, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) awarded a contribution worth $1.5 million to a small Halifax-based company called AetheraTM Technologies. This Announcement of Opportunity (AO) was the first to include a dedicated section for small businesses, a strategic decision to help diversify Canada’s space sector and help small firms scale up to space readiness. AetheraTM is a radiofrequency (RF) engineering company, whose products include solid-state RF generators that are used in a number of fields including food and mass timber. The AetheraTM team saw the AO as an opportunity to branch out their technology for space. They successfully proposed a project to adapt it to operate in the vacuum of space and to be integrated into Ad Astra Rocket Company’s Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR®) for advanced in-space electric propulsion.
Click here for original story, From food products to space: the AetheraTM story
Source: Canadian Space News