From The Detroit News 29th October 1998
( http://detnews.com/1998/technology/9810/29/10290037.htm)

Huge rockets will launch NASA's deep-space missions early in the next millennium, first to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, and later to Pluto. But once the ships have left Earth's atmosphere and are hurtling away, all of their power needs will supplied by an array of small batteries made by a small company in Ann Arbor called Advance Modular Power Systems Inc. AMPS - an offshoot of Ford Motor research in the 1970s - was awarded the $20-million contract early last year and is developing the prototype of the high-tech cells. Each cell will provide 6 to 8 watts of power, with 200 watts enough to supply all of the electrical needs of each deep space probe. The technology is called AMTEC, which stands for alkali metal thermal to electrical conversion. Basically, AMPS' power cells in the space probes will convert heat that is supplied by plutonium into electrical power. AMPS' technology won out over two other heat-to-energy technologies for NASA's Advanced Radioisotope Power System (ARPS).

Environmentalists protested NASA's launch earlier this year of the Cassini space probe because it is powered by plutonium. AMPS' technology dramatically reduces the amount of plutonium needed and reduces the danger of environmental problems in case of an explosion during launch.

Currently, AMPS' cells convert about 15 percent of the heat into electricity. The cells on board the deep-space probes will convert up 40 percent of the heat into electricity. The company is to have completed its design and begun testing on the deep-space versions by November.

"It's a real challenge for us," says George Levy, the company's president and chief operating officer.

It started at Ford
The technology's roots go back to Ford Motor's labs, where it was invented by Niell Weber and Joseph Kummer as part of Ford's research into environmentally friendly battery technologies. Thomas Hunt, a physicist who is now AMPS' chief scientist and chairman, was part of Ford's research team. Hunt later took an early retirement with Ford's blessing and left to develop a for-profit business based on the technology, turning in 1989 to ERIM, then an Ann Arbor nonprofit incubator of high-techs. In 1991, Hunt, Robert Novak of ERIM and Robert Sievers, formerly of Westinghouse and now the company's vice-president of engineering, founded AMPS.

Ford has a royalty agreement with AMPS but no equity position. AMPS has since extended and improved the technology, having applied for six patents and written disclosure for 12 more.

Levy joined the firm in February 1996. Since then, growth has been impressive. The company had 17 employees when he joined. A year ago it had 40; today it has 80, including 14 doctorates. In 1997, the company was named the 13th fastest-growing private company in Michigan, and made Inc. Magazine's national list of the top 500 private firms.

"Tom Hunt is a brilliant scientist" says Levy. "But he wanted to make business decisions as a scientist - when all the facts are in. You can't do that in business. You have to act in an entrepreneurial way, before all the facts are in."

This December, the company, which currently is cramped into 20,000 square feet in two buildings south of Ann Arbor, will move into brand new, 38,000-square-foot headquarters in the Ann Arbor Commerce Park on Varsity Drive. Thanks largely to the NASA contract, revenues will be about $8 million this year, with profits of about $250,000. The contract was for $20 million over 4 1/2 years, with $6.5 million in 1998. Revenue in 1997 was about $4.4 million, up from $2.8 million in 1996.

After earning his doctorate in chemistry from UCLA in 1968, Levy joined General Electric. During his five years there, he wrote Carbon-13 Nuclear Magnetic Resonance for Organic Chemists for researchers and advanced students. It sold 10,000 copies, a rarity for such texts, and was translated into Spanish, Russian and Japanese. That led to a teaching position at Florida State - and then a position as professor of science and technology at Syracuse University, where he founded and later sold a computer software company called New Methods Research Inc.

Thinking of future
While AMPS has flourished under government contracts, the long-term business strategy calls for it to rely less on the vagaries of government work and more on manufacturing and selling cells in the public marketplace. To do that, AMPS must find a way to dramatically reduce production costs. Currently, it is investigating a joint venture with a Fortune 500 company - the large firm is in the midst of a four-month analysis of AMPS' technology - that may come to fruition early in 1999. If so, the joint venture will be housed in the new quarters.

Levy says if either party decides against a joint venture, AMPS will fund a $1-million effort in 1999 to improve its manufacturing abilities.

How AMPS' deep-space batteries work
Each cell will create about 6-8 watts of electrical power and be about 5 inches high and an inch and a half in diameter. Coming up from the bottom will be eight or nine white ceramic tubes wrapped in a metal called molybdenum.

Heat - supplied by plutonium -- is applied to the bottom of the cell. The heat vaporizes sodium metal at the bottom of the cell, the vapor then rising into the ceramic tubes. As the vapor reaches the ceramic surface, electrons are freed, which run along a wire that exits the cell, leads to the load and then re-enters the cell. As the electrons flow along the wire, a current is produced and power is delivered. The sodium vapor passes through the ceramic, is recombined with the electrons, hits a condenser and is turned back into a liquid. The liquid is sucked into a wick, returned back to the hot spot and reheated, starting the process all over. The sodium metal will be recycled through the process seven or eight times an hour.

Because the cells have no moving parts, no vibrations, and require no maintenance, they are extremely durable. Cells will need to last about six years for a trip to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, and will need to last up to 15 years for a trip to Pluto. The launch to Europa, which interests scientists because it appears to have a large underground ocean and may support life, is tentatively scheduled for 2003, with a launch to Pluto the next year.

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