TUCSON, (AZ) (November 6, 2017) – Paragon is proud to announce it received the prestigious Governor’s Celebration of Innovation Small Business Award from 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. In September, Paragon also won the Copper Cactus Nextrio Innovation award for another innovative technology regarding water recovery for spacecraft.
Paragon‘s award was based on its patented XRad™ radiators which use friction stir welding (FSW) to bond thin extrusions into a cohesive and highly efficient panel for spacecraft use. 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 new development technology, which took five years to perfect, allows significant reductions in tooling and provides design flexibility to better meet customer requirements. In July 2017, Paragon’s XRad™ radiator technology was chosen 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. The required inspection and testing of the radiators is also greatly reduced providing even greater cost competitiveness.” said Grant A. Anderson, Paragon’s President & CEO. “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, “ pointed out Norman Hahn, Paragon’s XRad™ program manager. “This second award this year, and our second Governor’s award in 11 years, shows that innovation is in Paragon’s DNA” added Mr. Anderson.
Paragon 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.