Business Description

( 1 ) Description of the Company and Operating Environment Business Overview The terms “Astrotech”, “the Company”, “we”, “us”, or “our” refer to Astrotech Corporation (Nasdaq: ASTC), a Delaware corporation organized in 1984. We are commercializing the Astrotech Mass Spectrometer Technology™ platform (“AMS Technology”) through application specific, wholly owned subsidiaries. Our mission encompasses the advancement of both mass spectrometry and gas chromatography, two powerful analytical techniques that together enable precise detection and identification of chemical compounds across a wide range of high-demand environments. We aim to expand access to mass spectrometry by simplifying the complexity of operating these devices within real-time testing environments such as airports, border checkpoints, cargo hubs, infrastructure security, correctional facilities, military bases, law enforcement centers, and industrial locations. We are introducing our new line of products that are ultra-portable, on-site, rugged environmental testing instruments, featuring our proprietary Astrotech Technologies, Inc. (“ATI”) MS and ATi GC to achieve our mission through simplifying the user interface, automating the complicated calibration process, ruggedizing the critical components to endure MS/GC field work, and enabling multiple configurations for sample intake options. Astrotech Technologies, Inc. ATI owns and licenses the AMS Technology, the platform MS technology originally developed by 1st Detect. The AMS Technology has been designed to be inexpensive, smaller, and easier to use when compared to traditional mass spectrometers. Unlike other technologies, the AMS Technology works under ultra-high vacuum, which eliminates competing molecules, yielding higher resolution and fewer false alarms. The intellectual property includes 17 patents granted along with extensive trade secrets. With a number of diverse market opportunities for the core technology, ATI is structured to license the intellectual property for different fields of use. ATI currently licenses the AMS Technology to five wholly-owned subsidiaries of Astrotech on an exclusive basis. 1 st Detect Corporation 1 st Detect, a licensee of ATI for security and detection applications, has developed the TRACER 1000, the world’s first MS based ETD certified by the ECAC and approved by TSA for air cargo. The TRACER 1000 was designed to outperform the ETDs currently used at airports, cargo and other secured facilities, and borders worldwide. The Company believes that ETD customers are unsatisfied with the currently deployed ETD technology, which is driven by ion mobility spectrometry (“IMS”). The Company further believes that some IMS-based ETDs have issues with false positives, as they often misidentify personal care products and other common household chemicals as explosives, causing facility shutdowns, unnecessary delays, frustration, and significant wasted security resources. In addition, there are hundreds of different types of explosives, but IMS-based ETDs have a very limited threat detection library reserved only for those few explosives of largest concern. Adding additional compounds to the detection library of an IMS-based ETD fundamentally reduces the instrument’s performance, further increasing the likelihood of false alarms. In contrast, adding additional compounds to the TRACER 1000’s detection library does not degrade its detection capabilities, as it has a virtually unlimited and easily expandable threat library. AgLAB Inc. AgLAB, an exclusive licensee of ATI for the use in the agriculture industry to analyze complex chemical compounds found in organic plant material and extracts, has developed the AgLAB 1000™ series of mass spectrometers for use in the hemp and cannabis markets with the initial focus on optimizing yields in the distillation process. The AgLAB product line is a derivative of the Company’s core AMS Technology. AgLAB continues to conduct field trials demonstrating that the AgLAB 1000 - D2™ can be used in the distillation process to significantly improve the yields of tetrahydrocannabinol (“THC”) and cannabidiol (“CBD”) oil during distillation. The AgLAB 1000 - D2™ uses the Maximum Value Process solution (“MVP”) to analyze samples in real-time and assist the equipment operator in determining the ideal operating settings required to maximize yields.…