For creating the first-ever spacecraft designed to fly through the inferno of the sun's corona, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory has earned a place on Fast Company's list of the world's most innovative companies.
APL is listed No. 8 in the space category, alongside SpaceX and Blue Origin, for its design and construction of NASA's Parker Solar Probe spacecraft, which is scheduled for launch on July 31. The publication specifically cites the mission's revolutionary heat shield, known as the thermal protection system, or TPS. The TPS, designed with support from scientists at the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, is made with carbon-carbon foam and special plasma-treated coatings that will keep the spacecraft behind the shield at roughly room temperature, even as the outside of the shield reaches almost 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit.
Video credit: JHU Applied Physics Lab
In 2016, APL was among Fast Company's most innovative companies in the health care category for its work on DARPA's Revolutionizing Prosthetics program, which created dozens of new technologies, including the world's first neurally controlled artificial arm and hand.
This year, the health category features another company with Johns Hopkins ties, emocha Mobile Health. Emocha, co-founded by Carey Business School alums Sebstian Seiguer and Morad Elmi, developed a video-based medication adherence app to help ensure that high-risk patients take their medication as prescribed. Failure to take medications properly can lead to increased hospitalization costs, negative health outcomes, and the potential for serious public health risks.
Posted in Science+Technology
