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.

HYPER Lab member Eli Shoemake was featured with Victor Charoonsophonsak in this Month’s edition of “Inside Honors” the WSU Honors College Newsletter:

http://from.wsu.edu/honors/2015/inside_honors/april/148770-browser.html

Leslie Helm featured our vortex hydrogen liquefaction concept in Seattle Business Insider’s “Bright Ideas” column:

http://www.seattlebusinessmag.com/article/bright-idea-why-not-hydrogen

Thanks Leslie!

Congratulations to Ian Richardson for winning an MME Outstanding TA award for 2014! One student evaluation from ME 406 summed up his performance well with, “Ian is a F___ing Wizard!”

The Greater Spokane Agricultural Area consortium recently toured WSU. The use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) research is a hot topic in Ag and the HYPER lab has several projects poised to make advances. The original article can be found here:

http://www.capitalpress.com/Washington/20141031/wsu-seeks-federal-approval-for-uav-ag-research

HYPER lab member Ian Richardson is featured in WSU news as one of 3 graduate students to win a national research fellowship:

https://news.wsu.edu/2014/10/27/three-grad-students-earn-national-research-fellowships/#.VE7E0PnF-f9

Jeremy Felt represented WSU at WordCamp San Francisco last weekend. His point, in my opinion, foreshadows the bright future for communication we have here at WSU:

http://jeremyfelt.com/wordpress/2014/10/25/public-universities-open-source/

The HYPER labs winning design for the 2014 Hydrogen Student Design Competition is featured in the Fall 2014 edition of the Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture (VCEA) alumni magazine Innovation on page 18.