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Atul Kelkar and Jerry Vogel know a lot about the forces that keep an aircraft flying – even if it happens to be jetting toward the edge of the atmosphere at more than 20 times the speed of sound.

Their 2-year-old Ames company, VSI Aerospace Inc., is working with a team of National Aeronautics and Space Administration designers to build a next-generation reusable space vehicle to replace NASA’s aging space shuttle fleet.

Last week, the company announced it has been awarded a $1.6 million contract to develop a software system to help design NASA’s Highly Reliable Reusable Launch System, also known as the hypersonic space vehicle project. The vehicle will be used to carry and launch a smaller manned shuttle into orbit before landing again. VSI will develop the mathematical models and software tools that will enable NASA designers to come up with an optimal design for the hypersonic plane.

At the same time, VSI is working to commercialize a control system for civilian aircraft that will help pilots better react to turbulence and fly more efficiently.

As if that wasn’t enough to keep these modern-day Edisons busy, Kelkar also launched Innovative Energy Solutions Inc., which has built a prototype plant to convert waste plastic into diesel fuel. Another spinoff company, Innovative Vibration Solutions Inc., has developed a pneumatic suspension component that will provide long-haul truckers with a smoother ride.

“We are very busy here,” said a grinning Kelkar, who works with Vogel and a staff of three engineers at a small industrial-park office on the west side of Ames. Behind his desk, a whiteboard nearly overflows with computations scrawled in green marker.

“All of these products came together almost at the same time,” said Vogel, chief technology officer for VSI. “It takes years of research to reach this point; they just happened to reach this point at about the same time.”

Kelkar, a professor of mechanical engineering at Iowa State University, launched his first company, Vibroacoustic Solutions Inc., in 2004. That company specializes in noise-mitigation systems that use electrical currents to cancel out noises in acoustic insulating materials. VSI does not disclose its clients for its composite panels, but some of its uses include building materials, office furniture, heavy-equipment operator cabins and industrial cooling towers.

Kelkar has worked on various research projects for NASA since coming to ISU eight years ago, and previously worked at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia for nine years. Vogel, an ISU emeritus professor of aerospace engineering, has involved Iowa State students in NASA research projects since the first shuttle launch.

“Our experience in both of us working with NASA was so overwhelming that it was natural for our company to look into a research project in aerospace,” Kelkar said.

VSI Aerospace, and its work on the hypersonic plane, evolved after Vibroacoustic Solutions received a Small Business Innovation Research grant from NASA in 2006 to help develop a new type of control system for aircraft. The system uses air pressure measurements from sensors built into the wings and fuselage to detect dangerous air conditions such as wind shear in real time, giving a pilot more time to react than with current systems.

“The sensors also will allow the pilot to determine if the aircraft is flying with optimal trim, which will enable pilots to fly more efficiently and save fuel,” Kelkar said. By January, a test aircraft will be flown from Fort Worth, Texas, to Ames to be equipped with the system for further testing.

Sam Jennison, a Burlington businessman with a background in manufacturing and an aerospace engineering degree from Iowa State, brought the system to Vogel to commercialize.

“The key is to get (Federal Aviation Administration) approval, and you’re not going to get that unless you can produce data that the system can work and is needed,” Jennison said. “Without the data, it’s storytelling time. We would hope we could have flight tests completed by spring.”

Once testing is completed, he hopes to get FAA approval within 18 months, but noted it has taken as long as eight years for the agency to approve some new flight systems.

“VSI has a great background, and certainly has the ability to finish the research to make this thing marketable,” Jennison said.

The sensors, which are placed flush into the exterior surfaces of the aircraft, attracted NASA’s attention, Kelkar said, because they can withstand the intense heat and pressure of hypersonic flight. Last year, the agency awarded VSI a $700,000 contract to extend that control technology to the hypersonic space vehicle program.

Under the three-year, $1.6 million contract just awarded, NASA’s initial goal is to design and build a small-scale prototype of the hypersonic launch vehicle. Kelkar said he hopes his company will play a continuing role in the development of the multiyear project.

“We are on a very tight schedule because what we do fits into what NASA has to do with other teams around the nation,” Kelkar said. “We have a weekly conference call with a NASA team to report our progress and what we need next and what their needs are.”

Plastic to diesel

Another of Kelkar’s ventures is Innovative Energy Solutions, a company that is collaborating with a company in India to develop a technology to convert waste plastics into diesel fuel. Working with Thermopac Boilers Private Ltd., a Mumbai-based company owned by one of his relatives, Kelkar has already built and tested a small-scale demonstration facility there. It will be installed at the Biomass Energy Conversion (BECON) facility at the Iowa Energy Center in Nevada within the next few weeks.

“This is a small plant which will be used to do the final research and development needed to get it to the commercial market, and also to tweak the process to meet the specifications for diesel gas in the market,” he said. “We’re also going to use the plant to show people the concept and the actual process used. We are hoping the first commercial-scale plant would be available a year from now.”

A full-scale plant designed to serve a city of 100,000 people could produce an estimated 1.5 million gallons of diesel per year from plastic waste generated by residents, he said. The company is in discussions with the Iowa Department of Economic Development (IDED) and the governor’s office to seek state funding, and is also seeking federal money.

The process can also convert oil wastes to diesel. A Bahrain-based company that’s interested in the technology to convert oil tanker sludge to diesel will likely be its first commercial customer, Kelkar said.

Approximately 300,000 tons of plastic waste is buried in Iowa landfills each year, part of an estimated 32 million tons of plastic deposited into U.S. landfills annually. “If all that waste was converted to diesel, it would supply 15 percent of the nation’s annual diesel consumption,” he said.

“It’s quite innovative,” said Norm Olson, BECON’s facility director, who said he doesn’t know of any company doing this yet on a commercial scale. “It’s the first time we’ve seen this type of technology here.”

Keeping more waste products out of the landfills is a significant benefit of the system, Olson said. “And of course, up until about two months ago, the price of diesel fuel was pretty high. This process is diverting those products that have a negative value, and turning those things that would exist in the environment for a long time and converting them into a useful fuel.”

Smoother ride

Some of the truckers who may eventually use Innovative Energy Solutions’ diesel could also ride on smoother suspension systems, thanks to another VSI spinoff company, Innovative Vibration Solutions. IVS has spent the past two years testing a component to be used in truck cab suspension systems. In October, the company won third place and a $10,000 cash prize in the annual John Pappajohn Business Plan Competition. It was also recently awarded $130,000 from IDED’s Demonstration Fund for commercializing that technology.

Vogel said IVS has been in discussions with Sioux Center-based Link Manufacturing Ltd. to provide the component for use in its truck cab assemblies. “We’re reaching a point where we hope to be signing a contract soon,” he said.

Vibroacoustic Solutions reached profitability last year and expects to remain in the black this year, Kelkar said.

Though the spinoff companies have attracted some attention from venture capital firms, “we are intentionally not pursuing any because we are able to self-finance, and VC dollars are very costly,” he said.

“The hope is that each of these spinoff companies will stand on its own and be viable.”