NewSpace New Mexico program to help aerospace companies blast off

See Correction/Clarification at end of article

Aerospace is a burgeoning industry in New Mexico, and a new development program hopes to propel companies even higher.

Eighteen companies are set to receive technical support, capital resources, mentoring and networking through the NewSpace New Mexico Ignitor program, which launched today. The companies will have access to different services depending on their "readiness levels," said Casey DeRaad, NewSpace New Mexico founder and CEO.

For example, NewSpace New Mexico, a nonprofit organization based in Albuquerque, can connect a company with a potential client if it has a product ready to sell, DeRaad said. Or, if one of the companies is still in its concept stage, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) can help conduct a market analysis to figure out where to take the idea.

"There's not a one-size-fits-all curriculum that you can put together for these companies," DeRaad said. "They all need different things."

NewSpace put together a "basic menu of resources," DeRaad said, that all companies can access. That menu includes mentoring and opportunities to connect with other businesses in the program. But each company will get to chart their own course, tailored to their own needs.

The program is intended to help connect small- to medium-sized companies with resources and money. DeRaad used a bow-tie analogy to explain the program. The aerospace companies are on one end of the tie and the resources and money are the other end. NewSpace's Ignitor program is the knot — or the connector — in the middle.

Most of the money for the program is coming from an intermediary grant agreement NewSpace struck with AFRL. AFRL will also provide hardware equipment and facility space for participating companies.

The Ignitor program had hoped to secure federal dollars from the U.S. Economic Development Administration via a New Mexico Space Valley Coalition proposal, which NewSpace New Mexico is a member of. While that proposal was not awarded funds, DeRaad said she plans to turn to other federal funding as the program grows.

Down the road, DeRaad said participating companies will be able to pay money back into the program, so that NewSpace doesn't have to solely rely on grants or federal funds.

But in the meantime, she said, "the [AFRL] grant allows us to test it out and to make sure that these services are really helpful to these companies."

The initial 18 companies are only the first iteration. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. DeRaad expects companies to stay with the program anywhere from three months to a year, depending on their stage of development.

The program's goal is for each company to move up in it readiness level, land lucrative contracts and/or transfer their technologies into consumer products, DeRaad said. NewSpace plans to get feedback from companies both during participation and once they are finished — to see if the program has delivered on its intended purpose.

"For the smaller and medium companies, there are a lot of barriers," DeRaad said. "The barriers are access to high-cost equipment, access to expertise to guide them, not knowing how to navigate to the right funding sources, being able to demonstrate your technology and get it in front of the right people. That's where this Ignitor is helping these companies."

DeRaad said that NewSpace will accept companies for the program in batches based on their readiness levels. The application can be accessed on NewSpace's website. The 18 companies picked for the first iteration of the program are listed below in alphabetical order.