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Universal Hydrogen shuts down a year after first flight

Universal Hydrogen plane in flight
Universal Hydrogen’s prototype plane takes flight in Moses Lake, Wash., in March 2023. (Universal Hydrogen Photo)

California-based Universal Hydrogen — which put a hybrid prototype for a hydrogen-fueled airplane into the air last year in Moses Lake, Wash. — has run out of money and is shutting down operations.

The shutdown was first reported June 29 by The Seattle Times, citing a letter that was sent to shareholders on June 27 by Mark Cousin, the startup’s chairman and CEO. Cousin’s letter said the company’s executives were “unable to secure sufficient equity or debt financing to continue operations and similarly were unable to secure an actionable offer for a sale of the business or similar strategic exit transaction,” according to the newspaper.

Universal Hydrogen co-founder Jon Gordon confirmed the closure in a LinkedIn posting. “Despite everyone’s best efforts, UH2 proved unable to secure additional funding to move forward,” Gordon wrote. “Perhaps we were just too early. Perhaps we couldn’t convince the world that hydrogen, and not just SAF [sustainable aviation fuels], are necessary for the future of aviation. Time will tell.”

Universal Hydrogen made its mark in March 2023 when it flew a modified De Havilland Dash 8-300 turboprop with a hydrogen-fueled electric propulsion system mounted on the plane’s right wing. The system incorporated a megawatt-class motor built by Everett, Wash.-based MagniX. The engine on the left side was left unconverted to serve as a backup.

Less than four months after that initial flight, Universal Hydrogen relocated its test program from Moses Lake to the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. In February, the company announced a successful on-the-ground test of its hydrogen storage module and fuel-cell powertrain — and said it planned to have the system used in passenger airplanes by 2026.

Universal Hydrogen’s shutdown serves as one more sign that if hydrogen is to become a widely used energy option, it’s likely to take longer than its proponents had hoped.

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GeekWire

Spokane’s Tech Hub puts a big bet on advanced materials

Worker inspects thermoplastic assembly
A worker at ATC Manufacturing performs a quality check on an airduct assembly of thermoplastic tubing. (ATC Photo)

“There’s a great future in thermoplastics.”

If anyone ever does a remake of “The Graduate,” that’s how the famous advice given to Dustin Hoffman’s character about the promise of the plastics industry might be updated. And the movie’s locale just might be shifted to Spokane.

At least that’s what a private-public consortium centered in Eastern Washington and North Idaho is banking on. The Advanced Aerospace Materials Manufacturing Center Tech Hub, or AAMMC, sees a great future in the development of thermoplastic composites for aircraft and spacecraft.

Last October, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration designated the AAMMC as one of 31 Tech Hubs based at sites across the country. That status made the Spokane-based group eligible to apply for a $72 million Phase 2 grant.

The first five to 10 recipients of federal funding are due to be announced in late June or early July — and the leaders of the Spokane Tech Hub are hoping to be on the list.

“The Tech Hub designation marks in inflection point for the City of Spokane. While innovative manufacturing and collaborative research are already happening here, the Tech Hub will take the region to new heights by bolstering that work, boosting our local economy, and creating desirable, good-paying jobs,” Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown said in an emailed statement.

What’s the Tech Hub all about? Aerospace companies with a Pacific Northwest presence, from Boeing on down, are already spending billions of dollars on carbon composite materials — so what difference could tens of millions of dollars of federal funding possibly make?

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GeekWire

Boeing loses a legal battle with electric aviation startup

Illustration: Zunum Aero aircraft flying over Seattle
An artist's conception shows Zunum Aero’s hybrid electric airplanes in flight over Seattle. (Zunum Aero Illustration)

A federal jury in Seattle says Boeing owes an unsuccessful electric-aviation startup called Zunum Aero $72 million for misappropriating trade secrets and interfering with its business plans.

Some of that amount could be tripled if the judge determines that the misappropriation was willful and malicious.

“Zunum Aero’s founders and other shareholders are pleased that the company had the opportunity to prove its case, and that the jury agreed,” Scott Danner of the law firm Holwell Shuster & Goldberg, lead counsel for Zunum, said in a statement. “After years of fighting, the jury’s verdict is a tremendous vindication.”

Boeing said it would challenge the judgment. “Boeing respectfully disagrees with the jury’s verdict, which is not supported by the law or the facts,” the company said.

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GeekWire

After OceanGate tragedy, billionaire plans Titanic trip

Illustration: Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer submersible
An artist’s conception shows the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer submersible. (Triton Submarines Illustration)

Less than a year after the loss of Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate’s submersible and its five-person crew during a dive to the Titanic, Triton Submarines is planning a trip to the shipwreck in a completely different kind of vessel with backing from a billionaire real-estate investor, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal quoted Triton’s co-founder and CEO, Patrick Lahey, as saying that the trip was conceived as a way to “demonstrate to the world” that his company was capable of making the 12,500-foot-deep dive safely and repeatedly — and that OceanGate’s Titan sub was a “contraption.”

Lahey reportedly plans to make the journey with Larry Connor, a billionaire who has made his mark as an adventurer as well as an Ohio-based investor and tech entrepreneur. Connor, 74, served as the pilot for Axiom Space’s first privately funded mission to the International Space Station two years ago. In 2021, Connor made three submersible dives with Lahey in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench, descending to depths in excess of 35,000 feet.

“I want to show people worldwide that while the ocean is extremely powerful, it can be wonderful and enjoyable and really kind of life-changing if you go about it the right way,” Connor told the Journal.

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GeekWire

Scientists harness generative AI for cancer diagnosis

Illustration: Visualization of microchip with the look of a whole-slide image
Prov-GigaPath harnesses AI for digital pathology. (Ella Maru Studio via Providence / Microsoft)

Researchers at Microsoft, Providence Health System and the University of Washington say they’ve developed a new artificial intelligence model for diagnosing cancer, based on an analysis of more than a billion images of tissue samples from more than 30,000 patients.

The open-access model, known as Prov-GigaPath, is described in research published today by the journal Nature and is already being used in clinical applications.

“The rich data in pathology slides can, through AI tools like Prov-GigaPath, uncover novel relationships and insights that go beyond what the human eye can discern,” study co-author Carlo Bifulco, chief medical officer of Providence Genomics, said in a news release. “Recognizing the potential of this model to significantly advance cancer research and diagnostics, we felt strongly about making it widely available to benefit patients globally. It’s an honor to be part of this groundbreaking work.”

The effort to develop Prov-GigaPath used AI tools to identify patterns in 1.3 billion pathology image tiles obtained from 171,189 digital whole-slides provided by Providence. The researchers say this was the largest pre-training effort to date with whole-slide modeling — drawing upon a database five to 10 times larger than datasets such as the The Cancer Genome Atlas.

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GeekWire

U.S. Army awards $1.6M contract for Jet Gun technology

Wave Motion CEO Finn van Donkelaar with prototype Jet Gun
Wave Motion CEO Finn van Donkelaar shows off a mortar-scale Jet Gun prototype. (Wave Motion Photo)

Everett, Wash.-based Wave Motion Launch Corp. has won a contract worth nearly $1.6 million from the U.S. Army to continue development of its Jet Gun technology.

Wave Motion’s Jet Gun concept involves firing a jet of supersonic gas to push a projectile to high speeds. Since there’s no physical structure or barrel surrounding the projectile, the system has the potential to be up to 100 times more compact than a rocket or conventional cannon of equivalent power. Also, the barrel-less launcher can handle projectiles in a variety of sizes — which gives the Jet Gun an advantage in logistically challenged environments where ammunition of a particular caliber isn’t available.

In a news release, Wave Motion says it will work with the Army’s DEVCOM Armaments Center to prototype and test a version of the Jet Gun that can be used in tactical indirect fire applications.

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GeekWire

Radical raises $4.5M for stratospheric solar drones

Radical demonstration airplane seen from above during test flight
Radical's demonstration airplane takes a long-duration test flight. (Radical Photo)

Seattle-based Radical says it has raised $4.5 million to support the development of solar-powered, autonomous airplanes that can beam down connectivity and imagery during long-duration, high-altitude flights.

The seed funding round was led by Scout Ventures, with additional funding from other investors including Inflection Mercury Fund and Y Combinator. According to Pitchbook, Radical previously received $500,000 in pre-seed funding from Y Combinator.

Radical’s co-founders are CEO James Thomas and chief technology officer Cyriel Notteboom. Both founders are veterans of Prime Air, Amazon’s effort to field a fleet of delivery drones. They left Amazon in mid-2022 to found Radical — and the aerospace startup is just now coming out of stealth.

Thomas told me that Radical will use the fresh investment to expand its team, which currently amounts to four people. “We’re still a small team, but we’re growing very quickly,” he said. “We’re currently hiring. Those positions are up on our website, with more to come.”

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NASA awards millions to small businesses for space tech

Illustration: New Frontier's Bifrost orbital transfer spacecraft
Artwork shows two views of the Bifröst orbital transfer spacecraft. (New Frontier Aerospace Illustration)

Two Washington state aerospace companies — Tukwila-based New Frontier Aerospace and Spanaway-based HyBird Space Systems — are among 95 ventures that have won project development funding from NASA through its Small Business Innovation Research program.

The Phase II SBIR grants are valued at up to $850,000 each. These grants follow up on earlier Phase I funding for the projects, and will be distributed over a 24-month contract period.

Each small business was also eligible to apply for up to $50,000 in funding from NASA’s Technical and Business Assistance program to help the companies identify new market opportunities and work on their commercialization strategies.

The total outlay for 107 projects comes to $93.5 million, NASA said.

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Amazon drones advance in Arizona, retreat in California

Amazon MK30 drone
Amazon says its next-generation MK30 drone will start making deliveries later this year. (Amazon Photo)

Amazon says it’s gearing up to add a community in Arizona to its list of Prime Air drone delivery zones.

Later this year, customers in the West Valley region of the Phoenix metro area will be able to get their purchases via drones dispatched from Amazon’s Same-Day Delivery site in Tolleson, Ariz., the company said today.

The West Valley region joins College Station in Texas as an Amazon drone delivery site. Last year, Prime Air began free prescription deliveries in 60 minutes or less to customers in College Station, in partnership with Amazon Pharmacy.

For the past two years, Amazon has also been offering drone deliveries in Lockeford, Calif. — but today the company said it would be closing down that delivery site, citing the need to “prioritize our resources to continue growing the program.”

“We’ll offer all current employees opportunities at other sites, and will continue to serve customers in Lockeford with other delivery methods,” Amazon said.

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Cosmic Space

Halo Space reveals design for stratospheric tour capsule

Cutaway view of Halo Space Aurora capsule
A cutaway illustration shows the layout of Halo Space's Aurora capsule, with a toilet in the center. (Frank Stephenson Design)

If and when passengers climb into Halo Space’s capsule for a ballooning trip to the stratosphere, they’ll find cushy seats, fold-down receptacles for food and drinks, floor-to-ceiling windows that provide an astronaut’s-eye view of the curving Earth below — and a snug toilet to get them through the hours-long flight.

The interior design for Halo’s capsule, dubbed “The Aurora,” was unveiled on April 11 in London by Halo Space CEO Carlos Mira and famed automotive designer Frank Stephenson.

“Passengers will spend up to six hours inside our spaceship, and we want every minute to be unforgettable,” Mira said in a news release. “Frank and his team have created a capsule to enhance our flight experience, utilizing unique resources, design and technology.”

Halo Space is aiming to begin commercial service by 2026 with ticket prices starting at $164,000. It’s one of several companies targeting the stratospheric tourism market, a lineup that also includes World View, Space Perspective, Zero 2 Infinity and Zephalto.

Although these stratospheric tours are typically marketed as spaceflights, they wouldn’t go anywhere near as high as the suborbital rocket ships built by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic — 20 to 25 miles for Halo Space, as opposed to 50 miles for Virgin Galactic. On the plus side, the trips would be much less expensive, and arguably less risky.

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