WT Innovator: Business Integra shoots for the stars as it shifts away from staffing work
By
Nick Wakeman
Business Integra Technology Solutions focused on high-end scientific challenges at NASA as it made a dramatic shift form IT and staffing work to engineering services and products.
Business Integra Technology Solutions has carved out a niche in the aerospace market through a combination of acquisitions and technology alliances.
One of the customer challenges Business Integra targeted was the need for a single-board computer that allows for data processing on a spacecraft rather than sending the data to the ground for processing first.
In addition to its acquisitions, the company formed a three-company partnership to develop the SG100 single-board computer.
The Bethesda, Md.-based company also created an aerospace division to sell the product and it hired Trent Martin, former director of advanced development at NASA’s Johnson Space Center to run it.
This kind of focus helped the company transition from being primarily an IT and staffing firm to one that provides high-tech space solutions through engineering services and products.
That shift is why Business Integra has been picked as a Washington Technology Industry Innovator.
Through creation of its aerospace group, the company was able to win a contract with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to design, build, test and fly a pump replacement module for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment that will go to the International Space Station next year
An Alpa Magnetic Spectrometer looks for evidence of dark matter and very high-energy radiation coming from distant stars that could harm humans when traveling to Mars, according to a NASA web page about the International Space Station.
The company also won a contract at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies to manage both Earth observation and planetary science.