NASA announced the winners of the 2015 SBIR Phase 1 competition. We partnered with Matthew Wright of Ultramet, an advanced material solutions company based in Pacoima CA, to win the Cryogenic Fluid Management for In-Space Transportation sub-topic with a proposal titled, “Parahydrogen-Orthohydrogen Catalytic Conversion for Cryogenic Propellant Passive Heat Shielding.”  As stated in the citation abstract, “The Hydrogen Properties for Energy Research (HYPER) laboratory at Washington State University (WSU) recently demonstrated a Cryocatalysis Hydrogen Experiment Facility (CHEF) to characterize parahydrogen-orthohydrogen catalysts for passive heat shielding.” This work builds off of Ron Bliesner’s graduate work during his Master’s Thesis that eventually built CHEF.