Voxa and TMM Shoot for the Stars
By Vanessa Toussint, Owner-Toussint Machine & Manufacturing
Project Voxa continues to be an innovative aspect to the world of electron microscopes. Not only is Voxa’s award winning Mochii microscope an added piece of laboratory equipment on the International Space Station, Mochii has also been added to labs across universities in the US. Mochii has even made its way to Thailand and continues to gain curiosity and popularity worldwide.
Voxa remains headquartered in Shoreline, WA, while Toussint Machine and Manufacturing (TMM), which was established in 2009 in Sedro Woolley where the journey to the International Space Station began, has relocated to Yuma, AZ. TMM continues to manufacture the hardware for Mochii along with other Voxa projects that includes retrofits for preexisting scanning electron microscopes.
Astronaut Kayla Barron using Mochii, which can be seen in top right corner.
Although Mochii reached the International Space Station in 2020 it was not unpacked, installed and ready to use until late 2021. The capabilities of Mochii on the International Space Station are numerous. With Mochii on the International Space Station astronauts can identify and measure sample responses to unique extreme environments. They can characterize and document evolving phenomena over time in microgravity, and support engineering needs from crew or vehicle, just to name a few of the capabilities. The future looks bright for Voxa and its relationship with NASA, there has even been a little chatter about Mochii being added on a Lunar Lander. The relationship between Voxa and TMM remains strong and intact as we both continue to grow.