Oklahoma State University and partners unveil LaunchPad

Okla­homa State Uni­ver­si­ty and part­ners includ­ing Tul­sa Inno­va­tion Labs and the Osage Nation last week cel­e­brat­ed a rib­bon-cut­ting at the Launch­Pad for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty at the Helmerich Research Cen­ter (HRC).

The cen­tre will house ded­i­cat­ed resources to pro­mote the devel­op­ment of new tech­nolo­gies in advanced air mobil­i­ty, includ­ing staff to solic­it projects from indus­try, engi­neers and researchers to build new prod­ucts, and sup­port­ing ser­vices to help com­mer­cial­ize tech­nolo­gies and grow new com­pa­nies.

OSU Pres­i­dent Kayse Shrum said: “The US Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Admin­is­tra­tion recog­nis­es that tak­ing Okla­homa’s aero­space and avi­a­tion to the next lev­el has nation­al ben­e­fits, and we appre­ci­ate the agen­cy’s crit­i­cal sup­port.”

Okla­homa Aero­space Insti­tute for Research and Edu­ca­tion (OAIRE) exec­u­tive direc­tor Dr Jamey Jacob added: “The cre­ation of the Launch­Pad under the OAIRE umbrel­la will bridge the gap between ear­ly stage research and applied tech­nol­o­gy.

“The long-term goal is to sup­port the ecosys­tem for exter­nal researchers as well as entre­pre­neurs with start­up con­cepts they would like to tran­si­tion from ear­ly stage to field test­ing.”

Jen­nifer Han­k­ins, deputy man­ag­ing direc­tor of Tul­sa Inno­va­tion Labs, con­tin­ued: “This invest­ment in OSU-Tul­sa is part of our com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing the ongo­ing revival of Tul­sa’s His­toric Green­wood Dis­trict to inspire Tulsa’s next gen­er­a­tion of inno­va­tors, entre­pre­neurs and young peo­ple in the next wave of the aero­space and avi­a­tion indus­tries.”

Launch­Pad’s first indus­try part­ner, Wind­Shape, will cre­ate an envi­ron­men­tal test facil­i­ty, gath­er­ing data on con­di­tions UAS will expe­ri­ence in flight in a con­trolled lab­o­ra­to­ry envi­ron­ment. This includes envi­ron­men­tal test facil­i­ties to eval­u­ate drones in wind, rain, icing and wild­fire con­di­tions.

NASA Edu­ca­tion and OSU are cel­e­brat­ing more than 55 years of con­tin­u­ous part­ner­ship that has inspired stu­dents and immersed them in NASA’s work with pro­grams such as Teacher in Space and Teach­ing from Space, Explor­er Schools, Dig­i­tal Learn­ing Net­work and INSPIRE. Under the agree­ment, OSU and NASA will work togeth­er to facil­i­tate joint research, tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer, tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment and edu­ca­tion­al and out­reach ini­tia­tives.

NASA Direc­tor of STEM Engage­ment Gamaliel Cher­ry con­clud­ed: “The new Space Act Agree­ment will build on the exist­ing foun­da­tion and cre­ate an inno­v­a­tive uni­ver­si­ty part­ner­ship to lever­age NASA and the uni­ver­si­ty’s research oppor­tu­ni­ties.”

In March, Jump Aero Incor­po­rat­ed was award­ed a Phase I Small Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Trans­fer research con­tract in part­ner­ship with Okla­homa State Uni­ver­si­ty from the US Air Force’s Agili­ty Prime pro­gram.

Jump Aero and Okla­homa State Uni­ver­si­ty receive Phase I STTR con­tract from Agili­ty Prime pro­gram