LOUISVILLE - The University of Colorado at Boulder and Louisville-based SpaceDev Inc. have partnered to create a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating new entrepreneurial aerospace companies.

The nonprofit, called eSpace: The Center for Space Entrepreneurship, will help commercialize aerospace technologies created within these companies and will develop the aerospace work force to support them.

More than $1 million has been provided to support the launch of the center. Its primary funding is provided by a grant from the Metro Denver Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development, or WIRED, initiative with additional funding provided by the Colorado Office of Economic Development, CU, SpaceDev and the Air Force Research Laboratory.

SpaceDev, an entrepreneurial space company, will provide the physical space for the startup companies. In its first year, eSpace will provide five $20,000 grants to promising entrepreneurs to help support new entrepreneurial space companies.

"We believe entrepreneurial space companies are innovation engines that are transforming how we get to, utilize and explore space," said Scott Tibbitts, executive director for eSpace, in a statement.

CU and the Colorado space industry will be primary sources for new technologies and entrepreneurs to seed the eSpace incubator. eSpace will directly fund an eSpace Venture Design program through a $90,000 grant to the department of aerospace engineering sciences that will support three hands-on projects for graduate student teams to design aerospace technologies with commercial applications and the potential to transition into eSpace's incubator.

The projects will be coordinated at CU by Joe Tanner, a former astronaut and member of the aerospace engineering sciences faculty.

The initial round of eSpace-funded technologies includes:

* The "Colorado Student Space Weather Experiment" to develop nanosatellites that can improve the prediction of solar storms and their effects on Earth.

* A "Mini Jet Engine" for unmanned aerial vehicles.

* "SmartSondes for Atmospheric Sensing" to provide a remote control unmanned aerial system that can measure micro-weather effects near storms and wildfires.