In deep tech, the minimum viable product is the minimum credible evidence that your core technical claim is true — and for physics-heavy hardware, that evidence is usually a simulation-built virtual prototype. It's how funded teams de-risk their first NASA Startup & Space Technology Funding proposal and their first raise, before spending on tooling.
The single technical claim that, if true, makes you fundable. The MVP exists to test that — nothing else.
Build the virtual prototype in the physics that carries the claim: Mechanical (FEA), Fluent (CFD), HFSS/Maxwell (EM), or a coupled model.
Sweep the design against your requirement. Every failure found in the solver is a prototype you didn't machine.
Converged results become the performance curves, margin tables, and contour plots funders and investors evaluate.
In-space pharmaceutical manufacturing: small reentry capsules that crystallize drugs in microgravity and return them to Earth. First company to process materials outside the ISS.
Raised ~$329M total (incl. a $187M Series C in 2025), flew multiple capsules, and served as a government reentry-vehicle testbed.
Reentry aerothermal heating and heatshield/TPS sizing plus microgravity crystallization physics — exactly the Fluent + Mechanical work reentry hardware demands.
HYDROS water-electrolysis thruster — a small-satellite propulsion system that runs on water, funded through NASA Ames SBIR contracts and a NASA Tipping Point award.
Matured the thruster with Millennium Space Systems, flew the technology, and earned a NASA Spinoff writeup — a textbook SBIR-to-flight path.
Electrolysis flow, combustion, and thruster thermal/structural analysis — Fluent + Mechanical territory for a compact propulsion unit.
In-space manufacturing on the ISS — the first 3D printer in orbit, plus ceramic manufacturing and bioprinting demonstrations, several backed by NASA InSPA-style awards.
Grew from a startup demonstration into a publicly traded space-infrastructure company with recurring ISS payload operations.
Microgravity process modeling and structural qualification of manufacturing hardware for the ISS environment.
Lunar landers and rovers. Used NASA Tipping Point awards and the CLPS commercial lunar delivery program to fund flight hardware for Moon missions.
Built and flew lunar lander hardware under NASA contracts, becoming a lead commercial player in lunar surface delivery.
Landing-loads, propulsion, and thermal analysis for the lunar environment — coupled structural and CFD work under Mechanical and Fluent.
3D-printed chemical in-space thrusters and rocket engines, designed, printed, and hot-fired under one roof, with NASA SBIR propulsion funding in its history.
Built an in-house propulsion test and manufacturing capability and supplied thrusters to spacecraft programs.
Combustion and conjugate heat-transfer CFD plus thermal-structural analysis of printed nozzles — Fluent + Mechanical before every hot-fire.
Chasing one program often means you qualify for others you haven't heard of. These sister guides cover more of the U.S. non-dilutive landscape — same honest, no-nonsense approach. Not sure which fits what you're building? Ask us — we'll point you at the right doors, even the ones that aren't ours.
America's ~$4B/yr non-dilutive seed fund across 11 agencies.
Visit →Air Force & Space Force open topics and $3–15M matching funds.
Visit →Commercial tech to DoD via fast OTA prototype contracts.
Visit →Army prize competitions with a fast lane into Army SBIR.
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