MONEY

Vermont business aims to bring space jobs here

Dan D'Ambrosio
Free Press Staff Writer

Space isn't what it used to be, says Ryan McDevitt, co-founder and lead research and design engineer for GreenScale Technologies, a new company in South Burlington making propulsion systems for small satellites. What began as the purview of NASA and giant corporations has become an entrepreneurial endeavor for private companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX.

Prototype of a small satellite, a 4-inch cube known as a cubeset. GreenScale Technologies has developed a propulsion system for these satellites.

McDevitt believes that small satellites — defined by NASA as anything weighing less than 100 pounds — will lead the next wave of commercialization in space.

The advantage of small satellites, McDevitt says, is that they open space up to a host of new players who will bring new and innovative ideas on how to benefit and profit from space.

"To put up a billion dollar satellite you need a big company and a lot of funding," McDevitt said. "To put up a four-inch cube you need a couple hundred thousand dollars."

Ryan McDevitt, co-founder of GreenScale Technologies, is planning a 2018 test launch for the small satellite propulsion system he developed.

As small satellites became more sophisticated, and more capable, they began to draw the attention of both NASA and the Air Force, and ultimately of businesses. Squadrons of four-inch "CubeSats," as small satellites are called, can perform many of the functions of multi-million-dollar satellites the size of a bus, and with a distinct advantage.

On a big satellite, mistakes and accidents are more costly.

"For CubeSats, maybe you launch 10 of them, maybe something bad happens to two, but eight work fine," McDevitt said. "You can distribute your risk over a number of systems."

Small satellites have three basic functions: taking photos, acting as radio transmitters and creating "sensor nets" to collect data, including high-altitude atmospheric measurements related to global warming. A company called OneWeb is planning to put up a constellation of hundreds of small satellites to provide internet to the world.

Ryan McDevitt, lead R&D engineer of GreenScale Technologies developed his propulsion system in a small lab on the University of Vermont campus.

"Google has a project similar to that, Facebook has a project," McDevitt said. "If you're Facebook, the only way to grow your business is to get to people who don't have internet. At that point it makes sense to build your own fleet of small satellites. Those are all potential customers for the products we're developing."

For Facebook, small satellites are an alternative to losing an estimated $200 million satellite on the launch pad, as the company did when a SpaceX rocket blew up on Sept. 1. The satellite was going to bring internet to vast swaths of Africa, leading Mark Zuckerberg to tweet he was "deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX's launch failure destroyed our satellite that would have provided connectivity to so many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent."

Get out of my way

McDevitt, a Vermont native, earned his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts in 1999, where he worked on small satellite propulsion. He took a break to help his wife establish a business in Williston then explored getting his doctorate at UVM.

Ryan McDevitt, lead R&D engineer of GreenScale Technologies, and his team worked out their small-scale propulsion system on a white board in the lab at UVM.

UVM mechanical engineering professor Darren Hitt had just landed a three-year, $750,000 grant from NASA to work on small-scale propulsion.

"It was complete serendipity," Hitt said. "I had gotten this grant, he had already worked on propulsion systems, so it was a perfect fit for both of us."

Hitt's own work on miniaturized propulsion systems began in 2001 when he spent the summer on a faculty scholarship at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The propulsion engineers at Goddard had a grant to attempt to build a miniaturized thruster for maneuvering a small satellite, but found that simply shrinking down big rocket boosters didn't work.

"The physics change," Hitt said of miniaturization. "NASA found this out."

Alex Golden, a senior mechanical engineering student at UVM, prepares to test the propulsion system for small satellites developed by GreenScale Technologies.

When their grant money ran out, the Goddard engineers returned to their day jobs, and passed the baton to Hitt, telling him, "If you want to run with it, go for it."

"NASA at that point had a hint this was going to be important, but the big boys weren't interested in it," Hitt said.

Propulsion is important for small satellites for two reasons: To get out of the way, and to return to earth when their missions are complete. Put simply, space is getting crowded.

A test bed developed by GreenScale Technologies at UVM simulates space by suspending a small satellite on a cushion of air pumped into the red platform created through 3D printing.

"We've been launching small satellites for years," McDevitt said. "The United States is on pace to launch about 400 of them this year. The vast majority have no propulsion system, so you can't adjust. This is becoming a really big topic."

If you've spent $1 billion building and launching a satellite — as governments and private companies have — and a $50,000 small satellite threatens to crash into your expensive satellite, you're not happy.

"What they're having to do is move their billion-dollar satellite out of the way of a $50,000 satellite," McDevitt said. "Your fuel on board is fixed. There's no refueling in space, so every time you move your satellite out of the way you're using up your fuel. On a billion-dollar asset, that's real value being lost."

With a projected 1,000 small satellites launched annually by 2020, those invested in big satellites are insisting that small satellites get out of their way instead of vice-versa. That takes a propulsion system.

Tiny nozzles

McDevitt's propulsion system is deceptively simple. It combines rocket-fuel-grade hydrogen peroxide with a patented proprietary catalyst to create a chemical reaction that results in thrust channeled through tiny square nozzles incorporated into the small satellite. The system allows the satellites to be steered or stopped.

The only byproduct of McDevitt's tiny rocket motors is water vapor.

A portion of the work that went into developing a patented catalyst to interact with hydrogen peroxide created by GreenScale Technologies at UVM.

"We think of it as a green propellant at the micro scale, hence GreenScale," McDevitt said. "We think about being responsible stewards of space. We're Vermonters."

McDevitt's invention — developed in conjunction with chemical engineer Kevin Gagne — is his proprietary catalyst. Gagne's name is also on the patent.

Hydrogen peroxide is a well-known rocket propellant. The Germans used it to power their torpedoes in World War II. But creating the necessary explosive reaction by mixing hydrogen peroxide and a catalyst in a space as small as a four-inch cube was the problem that had confounded engineers like those at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

"The smaller and smaller you make the (mixing) chambers, the two don't want to mix," Darren Hitt said. "Our proprietary approach is how can you get it to mix in very small scale. We finally figured it out, and that's after 10 years."

Ryan McDevitt formed GreenScale Technologies in July 2015 with a partner, Matt Shea, who formerly worked at Draper Labs, a private research institution that spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. GreenScale's powered satellites are made entirely on 3D printers, using both plastic and metal such as titanium.

Earlier this month, GreenScale was named one of the nation's top 36 university-spawned start-up companies by the National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer.

"It's unrealistic we would start another SpaceX in Vermont, there's not the manufacturing base, there aren't the people we could pull from," McDevitt said. "But we can do this here, because of 3D printing. We have students graduating who have this experience."

McDevitt said he is already meeting with customers who are interested in buying GreenScale's satellites once the prototype passes all of its qualification testing in the 2018 launch into space.

"We're not just designing this because it's cool," McDevitt said. "The idea is that the launch will qualify the product so we can start selling it. My hope is we will be able to offer opportunities that if you're a UVM student, you don't have to go across the country to get a space job. We can do it here."

This story appeared online on Oct. 26, 2016. Contact Dan D’Ambrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DanDambrosioVT.

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