Stratolaunch successfully completed its hypersonic test flight earlier this year. Image courtesy of Draper

With a recent air-launched test vehicle flight that came close to hypersonic speed, research company Draper has accelerated the potential for its flight technology.

Draper, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based nonprofit, provided the crucial guidance, navigation, and control flight software for the flight. That guidance system was built on the same Draper technology that NASA has used in its Apollo mission, the international space station and space shuttle programs.

“In a broad sense, Draper has been working hypersonic since Apollo,” Rick Loffi, space systems program manager and lead executive for Draper’s Houston campus, tells InnovationMap.

The navigation software controlled the first powered test flight of an air-launched vehicle that approached the hypersonic threshold of Mach 5, or 3,800 miles per hour, or five times the speed of sound.

Stratolaunch successfully completed the flight of its TA-1 Talon test vehicle in the Mojave Desert in March. The California-based company designs and launches aerospace vehicles and technologies, providing access to a reusable hypersonic testing platform, according to its website. The historic test flight landed in the Pacific Ocean, and achieved successful ignition, acceleration and sustained altitude climb.

“The Draper software is really what’s stabilizing the vehicle during flight…and controlling it as it gets up into altitude and speed,” Brandon Jalbert, space systems program manager for Draper and team lead for Stratolaunch, says “so it’s not doing loop-de-loops, or getting unstable…blowing up in the atmosphere.”

Draper uses model-based design and algorithms in its software, and for the boost phase of the Talon test, Draper developed a novel algorithm, which built upon its previous work for NASA, Jalbert says.

Aerospace manufacturing companies like Boom and Hermeus stand poised to pick up where the Concorde left off, and are racing to implement and execute on accessible hypersonic and supersonic commercial technology.

The Concorde aircraft made supersonic, four-hour transoceanic flights a reality, but only for the very wealthy, and shut down in 2003.

Draper is not involved in any of those ventures to bring accessible supersonic flight back to the skies. Its primary focus with hypersonic will remain with deterrence and testing platforms, Jalbert says.

But the company’s technology “has applications everywhere from military to commercial activity,“ he says.

“Our focus is to solve complex challenges of national importance,” he says, “whether that’s…helping our commercial partners, or working on civil or military applications. That’s where we see ourselves being of value to the industry.”

With the harsh conditions involved in hypersonic flight, advancing the technology has its challenges.

“You’ve got to have proper hardware and electronics and sensors that can operate within those conditions,” Jalbert says.

Draper originated in 1932 when engineer Charles Stark Draper founded what eventually became the Instrumentation Lab at MIT.

His work on inertial navigation theory paved the way for the use of the autopilot in today’s commercial jets. The lab was divested by MIT in the 1970s, and became a nonprofit. Draper has long been a government contractor and has worked on many military projects, dating to WWII.

Draper in 2023 secured the $2.2 billion renewal of a long-standing contract with the U.S. Navy to provide the guidance system for the submarine-launched Trident II D-5 missile.

The U.S. government has shown a growing interest in the development of hypersonic weapons systems, as Russia and China have developed advanced capabilities.

The Pentagon’s budget request for hypersonic research for fiscal year 2025 was $6.9 billion, up from $4.7 billion for 2023, according to a recent U.S. Naval Institute report.

“There’s a big shift, in deterrence, as well as offensive, on hypersonic,” Jalbert says.

However, the Defense Department has not yet acquired hypersonic weapons, according to the report, but is developing prototypes and testing.

Draper has a long, celebrated history with NASA, and its Houston office is housed at Johnson Space Center. Draper's presence in Houston dates back to the 1960s, Loffi says.

From the Apollo missions to the space station and now the Artemis program, which aims to land the first person of color and the first woman on the moon by 2026 on its Orion spacecraft, Draper has partnered with NASA every step of the way, providing its navigation system for space flight.

“Right now, our biggest customer within NASA is the Orion program,” Loffi says, with approximately 15 of the 20-person Houston office working on the project, in collaboration with the company’s Cambridge colleagues.

Draper's Houston office is working on NASA's Orion program. Photo via NASA

The company is also working with NASA on lunar landing technology and sub-orbital experiments, as well as the propulsion element and Gateway space station for Artemis.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s aerospace manufacturing company Blue Origin is also partnering with Draper to develop the Artemis human landing system.

Neither Loffi nor Jalbert aspired to go into outer space themselves, but rather to provide solutions to make that possible. Human spaceflight has been a lifelong passion for Loffi.

While he had lots of job opportunities after graduating from Purdue University with a degree in electrical engineering, Loffi chose NASA.

“I wasn’t that person who grew up dreaming of becoming an astronaut,” Loffi says. “I was old enough to see the Apollo 11 moon landing, and it did inspire me.”

His work at NASA began after the space shuttle Challenger explosion, in 1986. He was part of the agency’s effort to return to space flight, and worked on space station development, before joining Draper in 2011.

Jalbert, a graduate of Northeastern University, says his early work at Draper “lit the fires for my interest in space.”

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7 innovative startups that are leading the energy transition in Houston

meet the finalists

Houston has long been touted as the energy capital of the world, and it's now it's also a leading player in the energy transition — home to numerous startups and innovators working toward a cleaner future.

As part of the 2025 Houston Innovation Awards, our Energy Transition Business category honors innovative startups that are providing solution within renewables, climatetech, clean energy, alternative materials, circular economy, and more.

Seven energy transition companies have been named finalists for the 2025 award. They range from a spinoff stimulating subsurface hydrogen from end-of-life oil fields to a company converting prickly pear cactus biogas into energy.

Read more about these climatetech businesses, their founders, and their green initiatives below. Then join us at the Houston Innovation Awards on Nov. 13 at Greentown Labs, when the winner will be unveiled at our live awards ceremony.

Tickets are now on sale for this exclusive event celebrating all things Houston Innovation.

Anning Corporation

Clean energy company Anning Corporation is working to develop geologic hydrogen, a natural carbon-free fuel, using its proprietary stimulation approaches and advanced exploration modeling. The company said that geologic hydrogen has the potential to be the lowest-cost source of reliable baseload electricity in the U.S.

The company was founded by CEO Sophie Broun in 2024 and is a member of Greentown Labs. Last month, it also announced that it was chosen to participate in Breakthrough Energy’s prestigious Fellows Program. Anning raised a pre-seed round this year and is currently raising a $6 million seed round.

Capwell Services

Houston-based methane capture company Capwell Services works to eliminate vented oil and gas emissions economically for operators. According to the company, methane emissions are vented from most oil and gas facilities due to safety protocols, and operators are not able to capture the gas cost-effectively, leading operators to emit more than 14 million metric tons of methane per year in the U.S. and Canada. Founded in 2022, Capwell specializes in low and intermittent flow vents for methane capture.

The company began as a University of Pennsylvania senior design project led by current CEO Andrew Lane. It has since participated in programs with Greentown Labs and Rice Clean Energy Accelerator. The company moved to Houston in 2023 and raised a pre-seed round. It has also received federal funding from the DOE. Capwell is currently piloting its commercial unit with oil and gas operators.

Deep Anchor Solutions

Offshore energy consulting and design company Deep Anchor Solutions aims to help expedite the adoption of floating offshore energy infrastructure with its deeply embedded ring anchor (DERA) technology. According to the company, its patented DERA system can be installed quietly without heavy-lift vessels, reducing anchor-related costs by up to 75 percent and lifecycle CO2 emissions by up to 80 percent.

The company was founded in 2023 by current CEO Junho Lee and CTO Charles Aubeny. Lee earned his Ph.D. in geotechnical engineering from Texas A&M University, where Aubeny is a professor of civil and environmental engineering. The company has participated in numerous accelerators and incubators, including Greentown Labs, MassChallenge, EnergyTech Nexus LiftOff, and others. Lee is an Activate 2025 fellow.

Eclipse Energy

Previously known as Gold H2, Eclipse Energy converts end-of-life oil fields into low-cost, sustainable hydrogen sources. It completed its first field trial this summer, which demonstrated subsurface bio-stimulated hydrogen production. According to the company, its technology could yield up to 250 billion kilograms of low-carbon hydrogen, which is estimated to provide enough clean power to Los Angeles for over 50 years and avoid roughly 1 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent.

Eclipse is a spinoff of Houston biotech company Cemvita. It was founded in 2022 by Moji Karimi (CEO and chairman of Cemvita), Prabhdeep Sekhon (CEO of Eclipse), Tara Karimi, and Rayyan Islam. The company closed an $8 million series A this year and has plans to raise another round in 2026.

Loop Bioproducts

Agricultural chemical manufacturing company Loop Bioproducts leverages the physiology of prickly pear cactus grown in Texas to produce bioenergy, food, and remediate industrial wastewater streams. The company uses its remote sensing technology, proprietary image-based machine learning model, and R&D innovation to capture raw biogas from the cactuses and is focused on scaling cactuses as an industrial crop on land.

Rhiannon Parker founded Loop Bioproducts in 2023.

Mars Materials

Clean chemical manufacturing business Mars Materials is working to convert captured carbon into resources, such as carbon fiber and wastewater treatment chemicals. The company develops and produces its drop-in chemical products in Houston and uses an in-licensed process for the National Renewable Energy Lab to produce acrylonitrile, which is used to produce plastics, synthetic fibers, and rubbers. The company reports that it plans to open its first commercial plant in the next 18 months.

Founded in 2019 by CEO Aaron Fitzgerald, CTO Kristian Gubsch, and lead engineer Trey Sheridan, the company has raised just under $1 million in capital and is backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy, Shell, Black & Veatch, and other organizations.

Solidec

Chemical manufacturing company Solidec has developed autonomous generators that extract molecules from water and air and converts them into pure chemicals and fuels that are free of carbon emissions onsite, eliminating the need for transport, storage, and permitting. The company was founded around innovations developed by Rice University associate professor Haotian Wang.

The company was selected for the Chevron Technology Ventures’ catalyst program, Greentown Labs, NSF I-Corps and was part of the first cohort of the Activate Houston program. It won first place at the 2024 startup pitch competition at CERAWeek. Solidec was founded in 2023 by Wang, who serves as chief scientist, CEO Ryan DuChanois, and CTO Yang Xia. It closed a $2.5 million seed round earlier this year.

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The Houston Innovation Awards program is sponsored by Houston Community College, Houston Powder Coaters, FLIGHT by Yuengling, and more to be announced soon. For sponsorship opportunities, please contact sales@innovationmap.com.

Rice University team develops eco-friendly method to destroy 'forever chemicals' in water

clean water research

Rice University researchers have teamed up with South Korean scientists to develop the first eco-friendly technology that captures and destroys toxic “forever chemicals,” or PFAS, in water.

PFAS have been linked to immune system disruption, certain cancers, liver damage and reproductive disorders. They can be found in water, soil and air, as well as in products like Teflon pans, waterproof clothing and food packaging. They do not degrade easily and are difficult to remove.

Thus far, PFAS cleanup methods have relied on adsorption, in which molecules cling to materials like activated carbon or ion-exchange resins. But these methods tend to have limited capacity, low efficiency, slow performance and can create additional waste.

The Rice-led study, published in the journal Advanced Materials, centered on a layered double hydroxide (LDH) material made from copper and aluminum that could rapidly capture PFAS and be used to destroy the chemicals.

The study was led by Rice professor Youngkun Chung, a postdoctoral fellow under the mentorship of Michael S. Wong. It was conducted in collaboration with Seoktae Kang, professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and Keon-Ham Kim, professor at Pukyung National University, who first discovered the LDH material.

The team evaluated the LDH material in river water, tap water and wastewater. And, according to Rice, that material’s unique copper-aluminum layers and charge imbalances created an ideal binding environment to capture PFAS molecules.

“To my astonishment, this LDH compound captured PFAS more than 1,000 times better than other materials,” Chung, lead author of the study and now a fellow at Rice’s WaTER (Water Technologies, Entrepreneurship and Research) Institute and Sustainability Institute, said in a news release. “It also worked incredibly fast, removing large amounts of PFAS within minutes, about 100 times faster than commercial carbon filters.”

Next, Chung, along with Rice professors Pedro Alvarez and James Tour, worked to develop an eco-friendly, sustainable method of thermally decomposing the PFAS captured on the LDH material. They heated saturated material with calcium carbonate, which eliminated more than half of the trapped PFAS without releasing toxic by-products.

The team believes the study’s results could potentially have large-scale applications in industrial cleanups and municipal water treatments.

“We are excited by the potential of this one-of-a-kind LDH-based technology to transform how PFAS-contaminated water sources are treated in the near future,” Wong added in the news release. “It’s the result of an extraordinary international collaboration and the creativity of young researchers.”

Axiom Space announces new CEO amid strategic leadership change

new leader

Six months after promoting Tejpaul Bhatia from chief revenue officer to CEO, commercial space infrastructure and human spaceflight services provider Axiom Space has replaced him.

On Oct. 15, Houston-based Axiom announced Jonathan Cirtain has succeeded Bhatia as CEO. Bhatia joined Axiom in 2021. Cirtain remains the company’s president, a role he assumed in June, according to his LinkedIn profile.

In a news release, Axiom said Cirtain’s appointment as CEO is a “strategic leadership change” aimed at advancing the company’s development of space infrastructure.

Axiom hired Cirtain as president in June, according to his LinkedIn profile. The company didn’t publicly announce that move.

Kam Ghaffarian, co-founder and executive chairman of Axiom, said Cirtain’s “proven track record of leadership and commitment to excellence align perfectly with our mission of building era-defining space infrastructure that will drive exploration and fuel the global space economy.”

Aside from praising Cirtain, Ghaffarian expressed his “sincere gratitude” for Bhatia’s work at Axiom, including his leadership as CEO during “a significant transition period.”

Bhatia was promoted to CEO in April after helping Axiom gain more than $1 billion in contracts, Space News reported. He succeeded Ghaffarian as CEO. Axiom didn’t indicate whether Bhatia quit or was terminated.

Cirtain, an astrophysicist, was a senior executive at BWX Technologies, a supplier of nuclear components and fuel, for eight years before joining Axiom. Earlier, Cirtain spent nearly nine years in various roles at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He previously co-founded a machine learning company specializing in Earth observation.

“Axiom Space is pioneering the commercialization of low-Earth orbit infrastructure while accelerating advancements in human spaceflight technologies,” Cirtain said. “I look forward to continuing our team’s important work of driving innovation to support expanded access to space and off-planet capabilities that will underpin the future of space exploration.”

Among other projects, Axiom is developing the world’s first commercial space station, creating next-generation spacesuits for astronauts and sending astronauts on low-Earth orbit missions.