AZ Technology

Our rich history includes developing spaceflight experiments placed on the outside of the Russian Space Station Mir during the first joint Russian/US spacewalk. This early research led to many current products and services. AZ Technology’s capabilities now include advanced products and services such as thermal control and conductive paints and coatings for spacecraft and terrestrial applications; laser-source simulators that perform seeker-readiness tests of laser-designated weapons; and optical properties measurement instruments and measurement services for reflectance, emittance, and SRI, (for LEED certification). The late Donald Wilkes founded AZ Technology in 1989 as a small one-manDonald Wilkes basement business. His 18 years of experience with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center gave him the abilities and reputation to build from these modest beginnings a strong innovative small business that “…has literally left its mark on the cosmos—where it is the only company officially licensed by NASA to paint the space agency’s red, white and blue logo on the orbiting International Space Station (ISS)” (“Technologies: A to Z,” Partners Magazine, Spring 2002). In fact, it is still the only company with space-stable color coatings; having coated other emblems on the ISS such as the European Space Agency logo, the Italian Space Agency logo, and the Unity module emblem, as well as various letterings and navigational targets and logos for the private space industry. In any recent movie where the space station is depicted, the white and black circles and squares, and the NASA and other logos you see were coated in our facility using our specialized space-stable paints.