VPT Inc

VPT Inc., headquartered in Blacksburg, Virginia — home of Virginia Tech — is a Virginia Tech spinout founded in 1993 that has become the world's largest supplier of radiation-hardened DC-DC power converters and power modules for military electronics, aerospace systems, and space missions, with its power conversion products flight-qualified on virtually every category of U.S. military and civil spacecraft and achieving flight heritage on missions to Mercury, Venus, the Moon, Mars, and Pluto.

VPT's core product families are radiation-hardened DC-DC converter modules — isolated power conversion circuits that take a spacecraft's primary bus voltage (typically 28V unregulated for LEO smallsats, 28-50V for military spacecraft, 100V for some GEO platforms) and produce tightly regulated secondary voltages (3.3V, 5V, 12V, 15V, ±15V, ±12V) for specific payload and avionics subsystems.

Space-grade DC-DC converters must survive total ionizing dose (TID) radiation up to 100 krad or more (depending on mission orbit and shielding), single-event effects (SEE) from cosmic ray heavy ion strikes, and wide temperature cycling (-55°C to +125°C) over mission lifetimes of 5-20+ years with no maintenance.

VPT's products appear on GPS Block III and GPS III satellites (navigation constellation), the New Horizons Pluto mission, Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity rover), MESSENGER Mercury orbiter, the Venus Express ESA mission, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and hundreds of military communications, reconnaissance, and weather satellites. The breadth of mission heritage — spanning five planets plus lunar and deep space missions — reflects VPT's position as the default radiation-hardened power converter supplier across U.S. aerospace.

VPT was acquired by HEICO Corporation (NYSE: HEI) — a Florida-based aviation and electronic components conglomerate — expanding VPT's distribution and manufacturing resources while maintaining its Blacksburg engineering team. VPT competes with Vicor's space division and Behlman Electronics in the rad-hard power converter market.