NASA’s investment in fuel cell technology in the 1960s has had a lasting impact on the development of renewable energy storage solutions. The agency’s need for efficient power sources for long missions to the Moon led to the development of practical fuel cells, which generate electricity and heat when hydrogen and oxygen bond through an electrolyte.
NASA’s Early Fuel Cell Development
In the early days of space exploration, NASA engineers at Johnson Space Center in Houston recognized the potential of fuel cells to provide more energy per pound than batteries over extended missions. The agency funded three companies, including a portion of Pratt & Whitney, to develop fuel cell prototypes for the Apollo missions. Pratt & Whitney’s group, later known as UTC Power, was selected as the supplier for all space shuttle fuel cells.
From Space to Earth: Commercial Fuel Cells
With NASA’s funding and guidance, UTC Power eventually transitioned into offering commercial fuel cells. Now known as HyAxiom Inc., the company operates from the same plant in South Windsor, Connecticut, that produced fuel cells for NASA. HyAxiom released its first commercial fuel cell in the mid-1990s and introduced its current product line about a decade later.
Sridhar Kanuri, HyAxiom’s chief technology officer, emphasized the importance of NASA’s contributions, stating, “The models they built for these products we use today had a lot of the electrochemistry understanding from the space program.”
The Future of Fuel Cells in Renewable Energy Storage
As government investments in fuel cells increase, HyAxiom expects to ramp up production from its current 120 units per year. The U.S. government plans to use fuel cells to store energy from renewable sources, leveraging the technology’s environmentally friendly nature, as its only by-product is water.
John Scott, NASA’s principal technologist for power and energy storage, highlighted the lasting impact of the agency’s early investments, saying, “All these companies trace their intellectual property heritage, their corporate heritage, even the generations of personnel to those companies NASA funded back in the early 1960s.”
NASA’s pioneering work in fuel cell technology has laid the foundation for the development of efficient and environmentally friendly renewable energy storage solutions, demonstrating the far-reaching impact of space exploration on Earth-based innovations.
