K. R. Sridhar

KR Sridhar (born ) is an Indian American engineer, professor, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer (CEO) of Bloom Energy. He was a professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering as well as Director of the Space Technologies Laboratory (STL) at the University of Arizona. Sridhar is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Education Sridhar was awarded a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the National Institute of Technology at Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India in 1982. He moved to the United States and gained an M.S. in nuclear engineering and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989. Career Sridhar was the director of the Space Technologies Laboratory at the University of Arizona where he was also professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. Oxygen production on Mars The Space Technologies Laboratory was asked by NASA to undertake research into how life could be made sustainable on Mars. The team built a device that could use solar power and water obtained from the planet to power a reactor cell that made oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to power vehicles. Sridhar led a project that built a Mars oxygen production cell using a yttria-stabilized zirconia solid-electrolyte ionic conductor to electrolyze carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon monoxide. The oxygen production unit was to fly as part of the MIP ("Mars ISPP Precursor") experiment package that was to be sent to Mars on the Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander mission. This would have been the first demonstration of in-situ resource utilization ("ISRU") for propellant production on another planet. However, the 2001 Surveyor Lander mission was cancelled after the failure of the Mars Polar Lander, which used an identical spacecraft.