Texas university to lead new FAA tech center focused on drones

taking flight

Texas A&M University-Fort Worth will be the home of the FAA's new Center for Advanced Aviation Technologies. Photo via Getty Images.

The Texas A&M University System will run the Federal Aviation Administration’s new Center for Advanced Aviation Technologies, which will focus on innovations like commercial drones.

“Texas is the perfect place for our new Center for Advanced Aviation Technologies,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a release. “From drones delivering your packages to powered lift technologies like air taxis, we are at the cusp of an aviation revolution. The [center] will ensure we make that dream a reality and unleash American innovation safely.”

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, included creation of the center in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024. The center will consist of an airspace laboratory, flight demonstration zones, and testing corridors.

Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi will lead the initiative, testing unstaffed aircraft systems and other advanced technologies. The Corpus Christi campus houses the Autonomy Research Institute, an FAA-designated test site. The new center will be at Texas A&M University-Fort Worth.

The College Station-based Texas A&M system says the center will “bring together” its 19 institutions, along with partners such as the University of North Texas in Denton and Southern Methodist University in University Park.

According to a Department of Transportation news release, the center will play “a pivotal role” in ensuring the safe operation of advanced aviation technologies in public airspace.

The Department of Transportation says it chose the Texas A&M system to manage the new center because of its:

  • Proximity to major international airports and the FAA’s regional headquarters in Fort Worth
  • Existing infrastructure for testing of advanced aviation technologies
  • Strong academic programs and industry partnerships

“I’m confident this new research and testing center will help the private sector create thousands of high-paying jobs and grow the Texas economy through billions in new investments,” Cruz said.

“This is a significant win for Texas that will impact communities across our state,” the senator added, “and I will continue to pursue policies that create new jobs, and ensure the Lone Star State continues to lead the way in innovation and the manufacturing of emerging aviation technologies.”

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University of Houston gets $2M to launch innovative transportation-focused cybersecurity center

traffic safety

The University of Houston is now leading a national consortium focused on cybersecurity in the transportation sector.

Known as the Transportation Cybersecurity Center for Advanced Research and Education, or CYBER-CARE, it's backed by a $2 million grant from U.S. Department of Transportation for its first year, with anticipated total federal funding of $10 million over five years, as part of the department's University Transportation Centers program that aims to address a number of topics in the field.

UH's center aims to "establish a fundamental knowledge base and explore advanced theories of how to best mitigate impacts of potential large-scale cyberattacks on transportation infrastructure," according to a release from the university. This includes protecting vehicle control systems, developing industry-wide best practices, responding to potential cyber incidents and introducing ways to recover quickly from cyber incidents in traffic networks.

CYBER-CARE is led by Yunpeng “Jack” Zhang, associate professor in the Department of Information Science Technology at the UH and director of the center.

"Our goal to make our intelligent transportation system (ITS) safer for all road users. That aligns well with the USDOT’s strategic goal of improving safety,” Zhang explained in a statement. “We also will promote interdisciplinary research and education across the transportation and cybersecurity domains.”

The center opened earlier this year within UH's Cullen College of Engineering’s Division of Technology. Houston and Texas colleges Rice University and Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi have joined the consortium with UH, along with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, University of Cincinnati and University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

The DOT's University Transportation Centers first launched in 1988 to conduct research. Support has ebbed and flowed over the years, but has seen some uptick recently. The Biden Administration's 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law authorized 35 UTCs to receive a total of $90 million in funding from 2022 to 2026 to address issues like traffic congestion, safety, infrastructure durability and cybersecurity risks.

According to the DOT's website there are other Texas UTCs at University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas Arlington, Texas A&M University College Station, Prairie View A&M University and Texas State University.

Last year, Texas A&M also launched a new institute for research and education regarding cybersecurity. The Global Cyber Research Institute was funded by $10 million in gifts from former Texas A&M student Ray Rothrock, a venture capitalist and cybersecurity expert, and other donors.

Nuro is now able to roll out its new model of self-driving vehicles in Houston thanks to a recent announcement from the government. Photo courtesy of Nuro

Self-driving delivery company with Houston pilots gets historic government approval for new model

hit the road

A California-based tech company has got the green light today to move forward a new line of autonomous vehicles that will soon hit Houston streets.

Nuro, which has a few self-driving delivery pilot programs across Houston, has been granted its exemption petition from the United States Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This move is a first for DOT, and it allows Nuro to roll out its vehicles on public roads without the features of traditional, passenger-carrying vehicles — like side mirrors or windshields, for instance.

"Since this is a low-speed self-driving delivery vehicle, certain features that the Department traditionally required – such as mirrors and windshield for vehicles carrying drivers – no longer make sense," says U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao in a news release.

Now, with this permission, Nuro has unveiled its newest model — the R2. The new model is more narrow than the R1, and has 65 percent more climate-controlled space for its food deliveries. The vehicle also has new safety features, like 360-degree vision using lidar, radar, and cameras and even has a pedestrian-protecting feature that enables the car to collapse on impact.

Image courtesy of Nuro

"We founded Nuro on the belief that we could reimagine, design, and develop an autonomous vehicle that would make the world a safer place," says Nuro co-founder and president, Dave Ferguson, in a release. "Our second-generation vehicle will advance our goal of transforming local commerce, and we are gratified that the Department of Transportation, under Secretary Chao's leadership, is promoting public safety and providing regulatory certainty for the self-driving industry."

The R2 models are being assembled in the U.S. with Nuro's partner, Roush Enterprises, which is based in Michigan. Per the NHTSA announcement, Nuro can deploy up to 5,000 R2 vehicles during the two-year exemption period. According to the DOT release, the organization will be monitoring Nuro's work throughout those two years.

"NHTSA is dedicated to facilitating the safe testing and deployment of advanced vehicle technologies, including innovative vehicle designs, which hold great promise for future safety improvements," says NHTSA Acting Administrator James Owens in the release. "As always, we will not hesitate to use defect authority to protect public safety as necessary."

Nuro currently has three pilot programs — all of which were announced last year. The company is working with Domino's, Kroger, and Walmart on food and grocery deliveries in six Houston ZIP codes. Since entering the Houston market, Nuro has been using its fleet of self-driving Prius vehicles to research and map the city's roads.

With this permission granted from DOT, Nuro can start making deliveries using its R2 fleet with its three retail and restaurant partners.

"Today's decision shows that 'exemption' can mean more safety," says Ferguson. "Our world-class team solved countless novel problems to create this design, and, after extensive modeling, research, and testing, created a vehicle unlike any other on the road today."

Photo courtesy of Nuro

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European spacecraft developer expands to Houston with U.S. business, new lab

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European aerospace manufacturer The Exploration Company has established its first U.S. entity and named Space City as its headquarters.

The company announced earlier this month that it has launched TEC Federal to support U.S. government customers and agencies, and to scale The Exploration Company's engineering operations in the country.

Mark Kirasich serves as president of TEC Federal. Kirasich most recently served as the senior director of human spaceflight at Blue Origin after a nearly 40-year career at NASA.

The Exploration Company is developing the reusable Nyx space vehicle. Nyx is designed to take off from any heavy launcher in the world. It will then dock at space stations, retrieve up to 3,000 kilograms of cargo, splash down and return the cargo to Earth. The company aims to make Nyx fully reusable for up to 10 missions, making it a more affordable and sustainable option for aerospace missions.

The Exploration Company completed a successful drop test of the spacecraft in May in the Mojave Desert. The company says Nyx is slated to perform its first flight demonstration in 2028.

In addition to launching the Houston business, The Exploration Company also opened its new Rapid Innovation Lab near Houston's NASA Johnson Space Center on Space Park Drive.

The Exploration Company opened its Rapid Innovation Lab earlier this month. Photo via LinkedIn

The Rapid Innovation Lab features a full-scale mockup of the future Nyx crew capsule as well as ongoing development and testing of the Nyx cargo capsule, according to the company.

The Exploration Company says the new lab will allow its engineers, designers, and operators to prototype and test crew interfaces. It will also support partnerships with NASA personnel and astronauts.

“Houston gives us direct access to the people and expertise that have built and operated human spaceflight systems for decades. We’re excited to invest and expand around that— engineers, operators, and astronauts working together and moving quickly towards building a crew capsule.” Hélène Huby, founder and CEO of The Exploration Company, said in a blog post.

According to The Houston Chronicle, The Exploration Company has about 30 employees in the Houston area.

The company was founded in 2021 by Huby, a French rocket scientist, and has raised more than $350 million in venture capital. It operates out of Germany, France, Luxembourg, Spain and Italy, with offices in the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates. It is also developing a reusable, high-thrust rocket engine known as Storm.

Exciting XSpace expansion plans + more top Houston innovation headlines

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Editor's note: The top Houston innovation headlines for the first half of July include XSpace's expansion and KBR's C-suite hires. Here is a recap of the five most-read InnovationMap stories published July 1-15, 2026:

1. XSpace plans $250M industrial condo expansion with RAFA Racing Club

nullXSpace plans $250M industrial condo expansion with RAFA Racing Club

Houston-based XSpace Group has teamed up with two other Houston companies, RAFA Racing Club and Maximo Capital, to develop five industrial condo projects that pair flex space and high-end car storage space with a members-only clubhouse for motorsports enthusiasts. The five projects will be built in the Dallas-Fort Worth; Miami-Boca Raton; Charlotte-Mooresville, North Carolina; Phoenix-Scottsdale; and Los Angeles markets. Continue reading.

2. KBR names C-suite duo to lead $5.3B government services spinoff

In advance of the spinoff of its Mission Technology Solutions unit, Houston-based KBR has made two C-suite hires for the new business. Michael LaRouche is coming aboard as president and CEO of the spinoff, currently called SpinCo, on Sept. 26. Nicholas Veasey joined as executive vice president and chief financial officer on July 1. Continue reading.

3. Experts: Houston's VC ecosystem has set the foundation — now we need scale

Fervo Energy went public earlier this summer. The Houston geothermal company priced its IPO at $27 per share, raised $1.89 billion, and opened the next morning at a market capitalization north of $10 billion. By most measures, it is the largest venture-backed cleantech IPO in history and an unambiguous win for Houston. It’s also a useful moment to look at where Houston's venture ecosystem stands and where it can go. The highlight: Houston's venture ecosystem has real foundations and, with increased company formation activity, can grow into the scale our city's ambitions deserve. Continue reading.

4. $12M pharmaceutical manufacturing facility to be built in Sugar Land

A nearly $12 million drug manufacturing facility is coming to Sugar Land. City leaders in Sugar Land recently approved a $1.3 million performance-based incentive for DeliverIt Group, a Sugar Land-based provider of specialty pharmacy, infusion therapy and clinical care services, for the development of the 60,000-square-foot facility. Continue reading.

5. Walmart expands drone delivery service to 8 new Houston-area stores

More Walmart delivery drones are now buzzing around Houston-area skies. In January, Walmart launched its drone delivery service in partnership with Wing at five locations in the Houston area. The retail giant just added eight more stores to its Houston-area drone delivery network. Wing says the expansion makes drone delivery available to more than 1 million residents of the Houston area. Continue reading.

UH lands $4M NIH grant to study early signs of autoimmune disease

NIH funding

The University of Houston recently received a $4 million National Institutes of Health grant to support a 10-year longitudinal study to identify the earliest biological markers of autoimmune disease.

Led by Chandra Mohan, the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Endowed Professor of Biomedical Engineering, the study aims to examine what causes Systemic Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases (SARDs) and to identify targets for future treatments. The study will be carried out in collaboration with Dr. Karen Costenbader at Harvard Medical School, Boston.

SARDs include conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjögren’s syndrome and systemic sclerosis—all are considered chronic diseases currently without a cure. Autoimmune diseases affect over 30 million people globally, according to UH.

SARDs occur when the body’s immune system attacks healthy, non-threatening tissues and organs. According to UH, in these diseases, the body often attacks nuclear antigens, creating anti-nuclear autoantibodies, which can be early detection signs for SARDs in more than 50 percent of patients, Mohan says.

Researchers will study blood samples and environmental exposure over the 10 years to better understand anti-nuclear autoantibodies.

“Collectively, these studies will help identify the genetic, environmental and cellular factors that are operative at the two steps of SARD development, namely the emergence of anti-nuclear autoantibodies and disease onset,” Mohan said in a news release. “ More importantly, these studies will highlight functional molecular pathways and mechanisms that may be operative at each step."

Mohan predicts that looking at SARDs’ shared characteristics, rather than each disease individually, could help identify more treatment methods.

“Individual SARDs have been examined in silos without an attempt to discern shared underlying features at the molecular level,” he added in the release. “Current understanding of the initial (and likely shared) origins of SARDs is only rudimentary but urgently needed to develop means for prevention and treatment.”

Earlier this year, UH also received an $11 million NIH grant to conduct a first-of-its-kind study of early language development in children ages 18 to 24 months. Read more here.

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