Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Electrical Body Signals Help Researchers Restore Movement and More

NASA has long studied the effects of weightlessness on astronauts’ muscle functioning. With support from Johnson Space Center, including SBIR contracts, Delsys...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

NASA Research Illuminates Medical Uses of Light

Multi Radiance Medical Inc. of Solon, Ohio, builds light-therapy devices based in part on NASA-funded research. Though health benefits of exposure to certain wavelengths were known,...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Telescope Mirror Tech Improves Eye Surgery

A system for guiding LASIK eye surgery is a by-product of early research on the James Webb Space Telescope mirrors. Santa Ana, California-based Johnson & Johnson Vision’s iDesign...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Device for Analyzing Deep Space Could Detect Tumors, Air Particles

NASA pulls data from deep space and elsewhere using microchannel plates, devices that amplify particles or photons, making faint signals detectable. Under NASA SBIR...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Space Radiation Research Fights Cancer on Earth

Protecting astronauts from space radiation exposure is important, so Johnson Space Center funded research into using certain segments of DNA to estimate radiation damage. After it...

Spinoff: Transportation

Flying (Not Quite) Blind

Commercial helicopters now use the video switcher developed by Van Nuys, California-based Eon Instrumentation Inc. to meet Langley Research Center specifications. It enables the X-59 supersonic test plane to...

Spinoff: Transportation

With NASA’s Help, the Moon Becomes a Commercial Destination

Several engineers who worked on the experimental Morpheus lander at Johnson Space Center have applied that technical knowledge to building a commercial lunar lander at...

Spinoff: Transportation

Space Program Pumps Up Turbomachinery

When NASA was looking for a low-cost solution to launch into orbit, Barber-Nichols of Arvada, Colorado, was subcontracted to build the turbopump for the Fastrac rocket engine at Marshall Space...

Spinoff: Transportation

New Solar Array Design Saves Space

NASA plans to use solar electric propulsion to send astronauts to Mars, but the technology will require huge solar arrays that take up precious space in a rocket fairing. So a NASA team invented...

Spinoff: Transportation

Private Lessons for Private Spaceflight

To enable their private astronauts to live and work in orbit, Axiom Space of Houston used NASA facilities and people with NASA experience to train their crews of private astronauts that travel...

Spinoff: Public Safety

FINDER Finds Its Way into Rescuers’ Toolkits

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory worked with the Department of Homeland Security to construct a prototype of a device that can detect people buried under several feet of material. JPL...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

NASA Helps Serve Yellowstone Fungi for Breakfast

A microbe found in Yellowstone National Park during NASA-funded research is now the basis of a fungal protein from which Chicago-based Nature’s Fynd produces meat-alternative...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Feeling Hot, Staying Cool

Using a temperature-controlling material developed in part under an SBIR from Johnson Space Center for spacesuit gloves, Fifty One of London is making clothes to alleviate the symptoms of...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

The Science of the Perfect Cup for Coffee

When Johnson Space Center wanted to upgrade the cooling system in astronaut space suits, it funded research into the best approach. A non-toxic material proposed as an alternative for...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Astronaut Life Support for Earth Families

Kennedy Space Center spent decades developing indoor farming techniques for crops and even fish to support a closed-loop life-support system for space travel. Eden Grow Systems Inc. of...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Suspended Solar Panels See the Light

To determine how well a suspended solar panel system would hold up to potentially destructive oscillations caused by wind, Skysun LLC in Cleveland, Ohio sought the help of NASA employees at Glenn...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Giant Batteries Deliver Renewable Energy When It’s Needed

A large, nontoxic battery that can store energy from the wind or sun was developed by Wilsonville, Oregon-based ESS Inc., which drew from flow battery research and...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Traveling-Wave Tubes Travel Far

To receive scientific data, NASA needed versions of electronic components that were small but powerful for launching on deep space missions, and contracted with Hughes to build them. A successor...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Learning to Code with NASA Data

To create programming teaching materials, Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Washington, collaborated with the Office of STEM Engagement at NASA Headquarters under a Space Act Agreement. By using NASA data...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

CubeSats Take a Bus into Space

CubeSats start with a hardware bus that houses and enables payloads. NASA Tipping Point funding for test flights informed the development of the Trestles bus sold by Irvine, California-based Tyvak...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Space Robotics Take a Deep Dive

The founder and many of the engineers at Houston-based Nauticus Robotics built robots at Johnson Space Center that had to operate autonomously in harsh, remote environments. Now they’ve applied that...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Cryofuels Come Under Pressure

NASA needs reliable cryofuel tanks for use in space, and the airline industry wants them to replace fossil fuels. SBIR funding from Marshall Space Flight Center for Tullahoma, Tennessee-based...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Earth’s Twin Helps with Extreme Electronics

An all-in-one, single-board computer module can withstand 900ºF conditions without a cooling system thanks to Glenn Research Center expertise in extreme-temperature technology. SBIR...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Cloning Metal Parts for Space and Earth

Physics-based computer modeling software makes it possible to build, examine, and test virtual 3D-printed metal parts that meet the exacting standards of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory....

Spinoff: Trending

NASA’s VITAL Contribution to Global Pandemic Relief

During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed a ventilator that could be produced quickly and cheaply. This design has...

Spinoff: Trending

A High-Tech Farmer’s Almanac for Everyone

In order to make vast amounts of satellite data accessible to anyone, Goddard Space Flight Center and Ames Research Center moved data into the cloud, developed search algorithms, and...

Spinoff: Trending

The View from Space Keeps Getting Better

For half a century, NASA-built Landsat satellites have been recording Earth’s surface, gathering science-grade imagery in various spectral bands. That data yields valuable information for...

Spinoff: Trending

An Electronic Traffic Monitor for Airports

A collaboration between Ames Research Center, the Federal Aviation Administration, American Airlines Inc., Charlotte Douglas International Airport, and Southwest Airlines Co. resulted in a...

Spinoff: Trending

Weather Forecasters Adopt NASA’s ‘Occult’ Science

Decades ago, NASA invented radio occultation, a technique that used radio waves to study the atmospheres of other planets. Now the proliferation of navigation satellites in...

Spinoff: Trending

Shuttle-Analysis Software Improves Airplane, Turbine Safety

Ensuring safety for astronauts on the world’s first reusable spacecraft required NASA’s space shuttle engineers to take novel approaches when calculating the...