Techshot Inc - previously doing business as Space Hardware Optimization Technology and as SHOT - is a technology company that originally had undertaken a range of projects in aerospace, defense, medical device, and consumer products industries but that later structured primarily around manufacture of spaceflight equipment and defense products to includw flight integration services and some space biotech. With some emphasis to the latter, in November 2021 it was announced that TechShot had been acquired by RedWire - an Indiana-based company developing biotechnology payloads for microgravity research. The firm originally came about as a result of a science fair competition sponsored by the National Science Teachers association and NASA. The founder of the firm originally developed a space-based incubator capable of caring for growing chicken embryos, a project that ended up backed by Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) - the former employee of the then TechShot Founder, President and CEO - who agreed to help fund the building of a flight-qualified system for incubating 32 growing chicken embryos in the microgravity environment of space, which would be launched aboard a space shuttle mission. Though the project was created and launched, it was aboard the space shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51L, which disintegrated seconds after launch, killing all seven astronauts on board. NASA and KFC would give the pair another chance build and launch their payload. In March of 1989, more than three years after the Challenger disaster, space shuttle Discovery carried the incubator aboard its middeck during mission STS-29. Since that time, the firm has continued to develop customiozed space research facilities, which have been launched aboard five more shuttle missions, three suborbital rocket flights and several parabolic flight aircraft. Besides constructing the hardware, Techshot also has provided payload integration services for its space missions. The firm is looking at payload launches to the International Space Station aboard commercial new space vehicles such as SpaceXs Dragon. In addition, the firm is also building a payload for an upcoming flight aboard a sub-orbital vehicle, such as Virgin Galactics Space Ship Two, Xcor Aerospaces Lynx or Mastens Xombie. Techshot has completed four complex device development projects for Procter & Gamble, with contract values totaling approximately $1.3 million. Each project began with an expression of need by P&G. Techshot then designed and manufactured solutions that met those needs.
