Heathcoat Fabrics has been recognized with the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for Innovation, announced by the Government. The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise are the most prestigious business awards in the UK. The awards were first established in 1965, and since then, over 7000 companies have achieved a Queen’s Award.
Heathcoat Fabrics is a market-leading manufacturer of knitted and woven fabrics.
Redefining technical textiles is a skill that we have perfected as a business, and Heathcoat aims to solve complex challenges and convert opportunities into value for each customer.
The awards celebrate the success of exciting and innovative businesses leading the way with pioneering products or services, showing their commitment to excellent sustainable development practices. The unique expertise of Heathcoat in developing high strength, lightweight parachute fabrics is now known globally, particularly within the space industry and perhaps most famously, our contribution to the landing of NASA’s Perseverance Rover onto the surface of Mars in February 2021. Heathcoat Fabrics is among 51 companies that have received the innovation award this year.
The Queen’s Award for Enterprise is now in its 56th year and is widely recognized as the most prestigious business award in the UK.
Heathcoat Fabrics is one of just 226 businesses recognized for excellence in the 2022 awards, including innovation, international trade, and sustainable development. The innovation has opened the door to other niche space exploration projects, including returning cargo and astronauts from the International Space Station and ensuring the safe splashdown of a capsule containing the first all-civilian team to orbit the Earth. The baton has now been passed to other members of the parachute fabric team who, between them, not only deal with new projects for NASA but also for multiple space agencies and private space exploration companies.
Peter Hill, director for woven fabrics, said: “The parachute fabric development team excelled, working tirelessly with NASA and others to ensure Heathcoat was able to deliver on their requirements. They are at the forefront of new and exciting textile technologies in space exploration that have gained global recognition and other developments within our business.”
