City of Houston works to map heat across town for larger climate resiliency plans

hot spots

The Houston Harris Heat Action Team is working to locate Houston's hottest spots. Screenshot via h3at.org

On August 7, when the thermometer reached a high of 93 degrees, a squad of 85 temperature detectives fanned out across Houston and Harris County. Their objective: Map the area's urban heat.

Organizers of the one-day endeavor pinpointed 320 square miles of Houston and Harrison County for collection of data about urban heat. Hardware attached to cars and bicycles traveling on predetermined routes took temperature and humidity readings during three one-hour periods: 6-7 am, 3-4 pm, and 7-8 pm.

The devices tracked temperature changes throughout the day in places featuring various characteristics, such as lots of green space, pavement or buildings. In all, the "street scientist" volunteers measured temperature and humidity in 32 heat-mapping pockets covering 10 square miles each.

The heat-mapping initiative was coordinated by the Houston Harris Heat Action Team, a collaboration of the Nature Conservancy of Texas, Houston Advanced Research Center, City of Houston, and Harris County Public Health. The team's corporate partners are Lowe's and Shell.

The team says urban areas are especially prone to high temperatures due to a combination of hard surfaces (buildings and roads), limited vegetation (such as trees), and heat generators like cars and factories.

"This problem, known as the urban heat island effect, can create issues for human health, infrastructure, and quality of life. Understanding how temperatures vary based on qualities of the natural and built landscape can inform how we reduce the impacts of rising summer temperatures in our communities," the team says.

Marissa Aho, the city of Houston's chief resilience officer, says the heat-mapping data will be available this fall through an open-source platform. Aho offers a heat-mapping project in Honolulu as an example of how Houston's data will be presented.

The Resilient Houston plan, released in February by Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, called for a heat-mapping effort like the one carried out August 7 and outlined ways to reduce urban heat, such as planting 4.6 million new native trees over the next 10 years and retrofitting roofs to decrease heat absorption. Aho says the heat-mapping data will bolster initiatives to lessen the "urban heat island" effect.

"Houstonians do not prepare for heat like we prepare for hurricanes, but we should," Turner says in a release. "Houston is getting hotter, and we need science and data to help identify where the greatest impacts are so we can keep Houstonians safer and our city more resilient."

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, extreme heat — defined as at least two consecutive days with temperatures above 90 degrees — ranks as the country's No. 1 cause of weather-related deaths. A 2017 study published by the National Resources Defense Council found the Houston area averaged 18 dangerously hot summer days per year from 1975 to 2010. Without any action to combat urban heat, Houston's annual number of days hit by dangerous summer heat could rise to 80 from 2046 through 2055 and 90 from 2091 to 2100.

Urban heat "leaves vulnerable communities susceptible to the dangers of stress and stroke, leads to higher ozone levels, and reduces the quality of life for all residents of the region — creating especially dangerous conditions for communities already striving to overcome historic obstacles around access and resources, as well as those who engage in outdoor work and recreation," according to the release from the Houston Harris Heat Action Team.

Aside from the human toll, urban heat exacts a financial toll. A 2017 study by researchers in the United Kingdom, Mexico, and the Netherlands indicates overheated cities face climate-change costs at least twice as high as the rest of the world due to urban heat islands.

Organizers of Houston's heat-mapping project note that last August was the second warmest on record in the city, with seven consecutive days when the temperature topped 100 degrees. As climate change takes hold and Houston continues to expand, "these heat-related challenges continue to be exacerbated," the release states.

Jaime González, Houston Healthy Cities Program director at the Nature Conservancy, says the heat-mapping data gathered August 7 will help determine where to plant trees, install "green" roofs, and promote other heat-mitigation tactics.

"We have a number of nature-first solutions in our toolkit that can help us cool our cities, but the first step in combating climate- and infrastructure-caused urban heat is to know exactly where to start," González says.

Houston was one of 13 U.S. communities chosen to participate in this summer's Heat Watch program, led by Portland, Oregon-based environmental services company CAPA Strategies LLC and backed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

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Houston healthtech startup raises $30M to scale surgical healing gel

fresh funding

Houston-based healthtech startup TYBR Health has raised a $30 million Series A round to scale its B3 GEL System, which helps protect tendons from scarring after surgery.

The round was led by Minneapolis-based Vensana Capital and Cleveland-based Mutual Capital Partners, with participation from Denver-based Neovate Capital Partners and existing investors, according to a news release from the company.

TYBR Health said it plans to use the funding to broaden the B3 GEL System's clinical applications, expand commercialization and conduct studies to evaluate its ability to protect tissue and improve healing outcomes.

"Surgeons are exceptionally good at the structural repair, but the biology that follows is what determines how it heals. That part of the equation has gone largely unaddressed ... There's a shift underway across surgical specialties, from focusing almost entirely on the mechanical repair to also weighing the biological conditions that repair needs to succeed," Tim Keane, co-founder and CEO of TYBR Health, said in the news release. "This financing lets us reach more surgeons and generate the clinical evidence to move that shift forward."

As part of the financing round, Greg Banker of Vensana Capital and Liz Todia Zambory of Mutual Capital Partners will join the TYBR board, alongside independent director Aaron Smith.

"TYBR Health is addressing a gap surgeons have lived with for a long time, with a product that fits the way they already work," Zambory, principal at Mutual Capital Partners, added in the release. "We're excited to co-lead this round and support the company's growth."

TYBR was founded in 2020 and originated from the TMCi’s Biodesign fellowship and participated in the TMC's Accelerator for HealthTech. Its B3 GEL System is a flowable extracellular matrix hydrogel designed to protect tendons, ligaments, muscles, and the surrounding soft tissue while they heal from orthopedic surgery. It received FDA 510(k) clearance last June and launched an Australian clinical trial in the fall.

The B3 GEL System has been used in hand, wrist, shoulder, foot and ankle, and sports medicine procedures since it launched, according to the company, and was first used in the clinical setting earlier this year by Dr. Tammam Hanna with Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.

Houston space companies win NASA funding to build Mars exploration robots

mission to mars

Two Houston-area spacetech companies have landed a portion of a $17 million award from NASA to develop robots for exploring the surface of Mars, the agency announced this month.

Houston-based Inuitive Machines and Webster, Texas-based MEI Technologies, which does business as Aegis Aerospace, were among the seven companies selected to receive the funding from NASA's Science Transport and Robotic Innovation for Deployment and Exploration (STRIDE) initiative.

According to the release from NASA, the companies are tasked with creating "innovative mobility systems" that would allow future Mars missions to access more challenging terrain and difficult-to-reach regions of the planet, and to travel farther distances. NASA estimated that the work will begin this fall.

NASA solicited proposals for participants in the STRIDE initiative in January. The seven named companies are the first selected to participate in the program.

The additional five companies to receive STRIDE funding include:

"STRIDE demonstrates NASA’s commitment to strong public-private partnerships, allowing the agency to explore new approaches for Mars surface exploration while identifying key capability gaps and development needs for commercial systems that could operate and traverse realistic Martian environments," NASA shared in the announcement.

Last month, Intuitive Machines was awarded $148.3 million to deliver its Nova-C lander to the moon. The funding was part of $600 million the space agency awarded to three companies as part of its Moon Base Program and was Intuitive Machines' sixth task order under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Astrobotic was also one of the companies to land funding for the Moon Base program, as well as Austin-based Firefly Aerospace.

Around the same time, Firefly Aerospace was awarded a $13 million subcontract from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop technology for NASA’s SkyFall mission to Mars. The mission aims to deploy three Mars helicopters to "perform science and demonstrate airborne subsurface mapping and resource prospecting on the planet." Read more here.

SpaceX launches Starship test flight with most advanced Starlinks to date

Out in Space

SpaceX’s mammoth Starship rocket blasted off Friday, July 24, on another test flight stretching halfway around the world, this time releasing 20 of the most advanced Starlinks.

Towering 407 feet, Starship soared from the company’s base at the southern tip of Texas. NASA monitored the space-skimming flight, a critical step toward using the Starship as a lunar lander for moon crews.

The hourlong journey ended with a splashdown so soft that the spacecraft remained afloat in the Indian Ocean as the SpaceX webcast drew to a close, drawing cheers from employees back at the launch site.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX had replaced six of the 33 engines on the first-stage booster after they failed to ignite earlier in July, resulting in a last-second launch abort. The previous Starship flight in May also experienced engine trouble, which prevented the booster from making a controlled return.

This time, all of the engines fired at liftoff, but not enough of them lit back up for the booster's return, causing it to descend too fast and slam into the Gulf of Mexico. The spacecraft continued soaring eastward, popping out the Starlinks one by one 124 miles up before reentering.

It was the 13th flight of the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket, and the second this year of the new version dubbed V3. Like the previous demo, neither the booster nor spacecraft was meant to be saved, instead plunging into the sea.

The stainless steel, retro-looking spacecraft hovered upright over the Indian Ocean before lowering into the water, more than 10,000 miles from where the flight began.

It was the best reentry yet, according to SpaceX, with the intact booster floating amid just a few flames. Previous flights ended with the spacecraft engulfed in flames and exploding at splashdown — or rupturing in midair.

“We're really pumped about this,” said SpaceX engineer Kate Tice, calling it “lucky flight 13.”

The Starlinks accomplished all their jobs before reentering over the Indian Ocean.

After being ejected from the Starship’s Pez-like dispenser, the Starlinks managed to communicate via lasers with older Starlink models already in orbit. With more than 10,000 Starlinks currently providing internet, SpaceX boasts the world’s largest satellite constellation.

Six of the newly launched Starlinks carried cameras that photographed Starship’s heat shield at flight's end, beaming back amazingly crisp shots even as the spacecraft bobbed in the ocean. The heat shield was also equipped with sensors to measure the extreme pressure placed on the spacecraft during launch. Most of the heat shield’s thermal tiles were black, but some were deliberately painted white to simulate missing tiles, part of an experiment to test the shield’s robustness.

"We got all the heat shield data we needed and then some!" Musk said on X.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman offered congratulations. “Excited for what will be learned from this mission,” Isaacman noted on X.

SpaceX wants to make sure Starship’s heat shield can withstand the heat of entry before trying to return it to the Starbase launch pad near the Texas-Mexico border. The company already has used a pair of giant mechanical arms at the pad to capture a Starship booster. The company plans to do the same with the actual spacecraft, which is designed to be totally reusable.

NASA needs Starship to wrap up testing and reach orbit soon so the Artemis III astronauts — three Americans and one Italian — can practice docking their capsule with it next year.

Starship is also the vehicle with which Musk intends to build a city on Mars. He's already booking tourist trips to Mars, as well as the moon.

The latest test flight was delayed first by the July 16 launch abort, then again July 23 by thick clouds from Tropical Storm Bertha.

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