Houston tech company tapped by NASA for near space initiative

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Intuitive Machines is among four companies awarded contracts for NASA’s Near Space Network. Photo via intuitivemachines.com

Houston-based space exploration, infrastructure, and services company Intuitive Machines has nailed down a NASA deal to expand the agency’s communications network for spacecraft.

Additionally, NASA recently completed the first round of “human in the loop” testing for Intuitive Machines’ Moon RACER lunar terrain vehicle at the agency’s Johnson Space Center. RACER (Reusable Autonomous Crewed Exploration Rover) is one of three commercially developed unpressurized lunar terrain vehicles being considered for NASA’s Artemis lunar initiative.

Intuitive Machines is among four companies awarded contracts for NASA’s Near Space Network, enabling transmission of data from space to the earth. The network supports NASA missions such as the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope. It also will play a role in NASA’s Artemis initiative, which aims to send astronauts to the moon.

Under the initial Near Space Network contracts, project timelines run from February 2205 to September 2029. A five-year option would extend the contracts through September 2034. Collectively, the contracts are worth $4.82 billion.

Intuitive Machines received two contracts for services that will ease communications demand on NASA’s Deep Space Network and “meet the mission requirements for unique, highly elliptical orbits,” says NASA.

“We are privileged to help NASA deliver essential data and transmission services that support missions navigating the critical pathways between [the earth and the moon], and beyond,” Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus says in a news release.

In September, NASA awarded Intuitive Machines a contract for development of a constellation of lunar data satellites.

Meanwhile, conclusion of “human in the loop” testing puts Intuitive Machines one step closer to its Moon RACER vehicle being chosen for the Artemis lunar initiative. Vehicles from two other companies are in the running. The winning vehicle is scheduled to be announced in 2025.

“Human in the loop” testing enables NASA astronauts to provide feedback on the lunar vehicles’ functionality, safety, and design.

The Moon RACER, featuring a rechargeable electric battery and a robotic arm, is designed to accommodate two astronauts and 882 pounds of cargo. Furthermore, it is supposed to pull a trailer loaded with 1,764 pounds of cargo.

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UH receives $2.6M gift to support opioid addiction research and treatment

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The estate of Dr. William A. Gibson has granted the University of Houston a $2.6 million gift to support and expand its opioid addiction research, including the development of a fentanyl vaccine that could block the drug's ability to enter the brain.

The gift builds upon a previous donation from the Gibson estate that honored the scientist’s late son Michael, who died from drug addiction in 2019. The original donation established the Michael C. Gibson Addiction Research Program in UH's department of psychology. The latest donation will establish the Michael Conner Gibson Endowed Professorship in Psychology and the Michael Conner Gibson Research Endowment in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

“This incredibly generous gift will accelerate UH’s addiction research program and advance new approaches to treatment,” Daniel O’Connor, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, said in a news release.

The Michael C. Gibson Addiction Research Program is led by UH professor of psychology Therese Kosten and Colin Haile, a founding member of the UH Drug Discovery Institute. Currently, the program produces high-profile drug research, including the fentanyl vaccine.

According to UH, the vaccine can eliminate the drug’s “high” and could have major implications for the nation’s opioid epidemic, as research reveals Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is treatable.

The endowed professorship is combined with a one-to-one match from the Aspire Fund Challenge, a $50 million grant program established in 2019 by an anonymous donor. UH says the program has helped the university increase its number of endowed chairs and professorships, including this new position in the department of psychology.

“Our future discoveries will forever honor the memory of Michael Conner Gibson and the Gibson family,” O’Connor added in the release. “And I expect that the work supported by these endowments will eventually save many thousands of lives.”

CenterPoint and partners launch AI initiative to stabilize the power grid

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Houston-based utility company CenterPoint Energy is one of the founding partners of a new AI infrastructure initiative called Chain Reaction.

Software companies NVIDIA and Palantir have joined CenterPoint in forming Chain Reaction, which is aimed at speeding up AI buildouts for energy producers and distributors, data centers and infrastructure builders. Among the initiative’s goals are to stabilize and expand the power grid to meet growing demand from data centers, and to design and develop large data centers that can support AI activity.

“The energy infrastructure buildout is the industrial challenge of our generation,” Tristan Gruska, Palantir’s head of energy and infrastructure, says in a news release. “But the software that the sector relies on was not built for this moment. We have spent years quietly deploying systems that keep power plants running and grids reliable. Chain Reaction is the result of building from the ground up for the demands of AI.”

CenterPoint serves about 7 million customers in Texas, Indiana, Minnesota and Ohio. After Hurricane Beryl struck Houston in July 2024, CenterPoint committed to building a resilient power grid for the region and chose Palantir as its “software backbone.”

“Never before have technology and energy been so intertwined in determining the future course of American innovation, commercial growth, and economic security,” Jason Wells, chairman, president and CEO of CenterPoint, added in the release.

In November, the utility company got the go-ahead from the Public Utility Commission of Texas for a $2.9 billion upgrade of its Houston-area power grid. CenterPoint serves 2.9 million customers in a 12-county territory anchored by Houston.

A month earlier, CenterPoint launched a $65 billion, 10-year capital improvement plan to support rising demand for power across all of its service territories.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Houston researchers develop material to boost AI speed and cut energy use

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A team of researchers at the University of Houston has developed an innovative thin-film material that they believe will make AI devices faster and more energy efficient.

AI data centers consume massive amounts of electricity and use large cooling systems to operate, adding a strain on overall energy consumption.

“AI has made our energy needs explode,” Alamgir Karim, Dow Chair and Welch Foundation Professor at the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UH, explained in a news release. “Many AI data centers employ vast cooling systems that consume large amounts of electricity to keep the thousands of servers with integrated circuit chips running optimally at low temperatures to maintain high data processing speed, have shorter response time and extend chip lifetime.”

In a report recently published in ACS Nano, Karim and a team of researchers introduced a specialized two-dimensional thin film dielectric, or electric insulator. The film, which does not store electricity, could be used to replace traditional, heat-generating components in integrated circuit chips, which are essential hardware powering AI.

The thinner film material aims to reduce the significant energy cost and heat produced by the high-performance computing necessary for AI.

Karim and his former doctoral student, Maninderjeet Singh, used Nobel prize-winning organic framework materials to develop the film. Singh, now a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University, developed the materials during his doctoral training at UH, along with Devin Shaffer, a UH professor of civil engineering, and doctoral student Erin Schroeder.

Their study shows that dielectrics with high permittivity (high-k) store more electrical energy and dissipate more energy as heat than those with low-k materials. Karim focused on low-k materials made from light elements, like carbon, that would allow chips to run cooler and faster.

The team then created new materials with carbon and other light elements, forming covalently bonded sheetlike films with highly porous crystalline structures using a process known as synthetic interfacial polymerization. Then they studied their electronic properties and applications in devices.

According to the report, the film was suitable for high-voltage, high-power devices while maintaining thermal stability at elevated operating temperatures.

“These next-generation materials are expected to boost the performance of AI and conventional electronics devices significantly,” Singh added in the release.

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