Goleta-based engineering house LaunchPoint Technologies has won a piece of a $5.6 million federal grant to move a heart-assist pump for babies and small children recovering from heart surgery or waiting on a heart transplant toward clinical tests.

LaunchPoint will receive roughly $1 million of the grant, which will be used to finished up preclinical work on the pump and get FDA approval to begin clinical trials. The money comes from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute part of the National Institutes of Health.

LaunchPoint is developing the newest pump, which is about the size of an AA battery, for WorldHeart Corp., a Salt Lake City-based medical device maker that has begun clinical trials of an adult-sized device developed by LaunchPoint.

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