Paragon Space Development Corporation® has been selected as a finalist for the 2017 Governor’s Celebration of Innovation Small Business Award by the Arizona Technical Council and Arizona Commerce Authority. This award honors the visionaries of Arizona’s technology ecosystem whose passion and dedication energize Arizona’s rapidly growing technology community.
 
Paragon was nominated for revolutionizing the methods used to design and build spacecraft radiators.  A new development technology that took five years to perfect, Paragon’s patented XRad™ radiators use friction stir welding (FSW) to bond thin extrusions into a cohesive and highly efficient panel.  The method allows significant reductions in tooling and provides flexibility of design to better meet the requirements of customers.  Paragon’s XRad radiator technology was chosen this year to provide radiator systems to a major aerospace firm’s vehicle being built for NASA.
 
“Paragon’s XRad technology allows Paragon to respond to changes in the design details of our customer’s spacecraft without the costly and time-consuming tooling of traditional honeycomb core radiators,” said Grant A. Anderson, president & CEO, Paragon Space Development Corporation. “The required inspection and testing of the radiators are also greatly reduced, providing even greater cost competitiveness.”
 
The XRad development challenges included the welding of thin metal sheets edge-to-edge to each other; processing of extruded tubing to allow for efficient, repeatable, and leak-tight connections to thermal fluid distribution manifolds; and special methods for radiator finishing.  Paragon’s patented technology (Pat 9,091,489; 9,429,371) was developed with internal research funds and was used to deliver a robust radiator demonstrator to NASA.
 
“This design flexibility has allowed us to respond quickly to our customer’s needs and advance rapidly through the design process, sometimes cutting “normal” design time from almost a year to several months,” said Norman Hahn, XRad program manager, Paragon Space Development Corporation.
 
 “Paragon is a premier example of Arizona’s thriving technology community,” said Steven G. Zylstra, president and CEO, Arizona Technology Council. “Their contribution to the space sector and aptitude for innovation makes the company well-deserving of the honor of being named a finalist.”
 
For other news on Paragon, please visit www.paragonsdc.com.
 
Paragon Space Development Corporation is an industry leader in life support and thermal control solutions for extreme environments in space, defense and commercial markets. Through superior products and persistent innovation, Paragon continues to provide pathways to send humans farther than they have ever gone before in space while also providing solutions for unique human survival needs here on Earth.  We believe at Paragon that Life has no Limits.