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This is Chris Redgrave for Zions Bank Speaking on Business.
Inventing and space are nothing new for Dr. J.C. Batty. With a doctorate in mechanical engineering from MIT, and a long career in both teaching at Utah State University and working at USU's Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, space has always been an important area of focus for him. And now it's the basis for the company he launched a few years ago, Thermal Management Technologies.
Heroic thermal management is often required for spacecraft in the harsh thermal environment of space where there's direct sun with no atmosphere to mitigate its rays. USU's Space Dynamics Lab has a strong legacy of placing infra-red cameras aboard spacecraft, but they must be kept very cold, within a few degrees of absolute zero, a temperature that must be maintained exactly.
What Dr. Batty and his team at Thermal Management Technologies have done is create thermal structural panels to regulate the temperature of the spacecraft, so it stays the same despite the conditions.... This means no matter where the spacecraft is, there's not a hot or cold side, which is critical in such a harsh environment.
It's a concept Dr. Batty has been working on for 20 years. He says the only way to get heat out and to cool a spacecraft is by radiation... Radiator panels attached to a spacecraft are ordinarily made out of aluminum, but the Thermal Management team's secret sauce is a technology that keeps the spacecraft and radiators at essentially a uniform temperature.
Right now, they're anticipating a ride into space to fully qualify this technology for widespread use by the aerospace community.
Dr. Batty has grown Thermal Management Technologies to 12 employees, with some of the top engineering minds in his field on board. They're also busy developing a variety of other thermal management technologies for terrestrial applications including the conversion of saline or brackish water to drinking water for deployed troops, processing Utah's potash resources in an environmentally-friendly way, creating low-cost water flow meters to promote water conservation and cooling Lithium-ion batteries.
For Zions Bank, I'm Chris Redgrave, speaking on business.
Thermal Management Technologies 1750 N. Research Pkwy. #104 North Logan, UT 84341 435-755-6401 www.tmtsdl.com
