January 13, 2005

BIRMINGHAM, AL — The Center for Biophysical Science and Engineering at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has been awarded a five-year NASA contract for up to $48 million to develop Crew Robotics and Vehicle Equipment (CRAVE) for work in space. Lee Moradi, manager of engineering for the UAB center, is the program manager for CRAVE.

UAB and the Texas Engineering Experiment Station at Texas A&M University in College Station are the only two academic institutions to receive the contracts. Two companies, Hamilton Sundstrand Services and Oceaneering Space Systems Inc., both of Houston, also received contracts.

“We will bid on CRAVE delivery orders as they are released by NASA,” Moradi said. “Our expertise here at UAB is in the development of high precision research instruments and thermal carriers for use on ground and in space.”

Other projects likely will include development of extravehicular activity equipment, spacecraft flight crew equipment, crew health and conditioning systems, extravehicular robotics equipment, and environmental control and life support equipment.

Contracts will cover all phases of design, development, testing and manufacturing of equipment. The equipment will be used aboard the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. Equipment requests also may come from NASA’s advanced programs for future human spaceflight.

More information about the Center for Biophysical Science and Engineering is available on the Web at www.cbse.uab.edu.