NASA’s Small Business Industry Awards recognize companies that demonstrate outstanding performance while making significant contributions to the NASA mission. Each year, NASA field centers nominate a Small Business Subcontractor and Prime Contractor of the year. Metis Flight Research Associates has been selected by NASA Ames Research Center to receive the 2019 Small Business Prime Contractor of the Year award for the company’s performance on the Technical Services for Aerospace Systems Modeling and Simulation (SimLabs) III contract.
SimLabs is a set of unique national research and development facilities dedicated to providing researchers with high-fidelity environments to conduct simulated flight and air traffic management research and advance the state-of-the-art of simulation technology. Researchers use the facilities to investigate a variety of topics ranging from the design of new aircraft guidance and control systems to the human factors implications of new or existing flight deck displays, airspace operations, air traffic control, and automation. In-house projects and experiments are conducted to develop new simulator systems and subsystems, improve simulation systems, develop advanced engineering techniques to improve the fidelity and validity of simulation programs and incorporate the latest technology into simulation systems. SimLabs currently include the Crew-Vehicle Systems Research Facility, the Vertical Motion Simulation Complex, the Distributed Simulation Research Laboratory, FutureFlight Central, and the Air Traffic Control Lab.
Metis Flight Research Associates (MFRA) is an all-small business joint venture of Metis Technology Solutions, Flight Research Associates and SYMVIONICS, Inc. – all companies with outstanding capabilities in aeronautics modeling and simulation support services. MFRA began its support of the SimLabs contract in June 2018. In addition to receiving this year’s Small Business Prime Contractor of the Year award, MFRA staff have recently been recognized with NASA Ames Honor Awards for advancing the Airborne Collision Avoidance System capability and for developing and building a lunar lander simulation utilizing the Vertical Motion Simulator. The VMS lunar lander simulation was successfully demonstrated to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and to US Vice President Michael Pence during 2019, in preparation for NASA’s upcoming Artemis lunar exploration mission.