NASA Spinoff
Computer Technology
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
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: 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
Expertise Flows from Computer Cognition
Keeping the lights on in West Africa can be difficult, as the electricity market in the region is plagued with power shortages. While disparities exist, access has improved in the last decade...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
NASA-Born Software Helps Weather Forecasting Around the Globe
The 2020 hurricane season was one of the most active on record, and 2021’s is shaping up to be as well, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
NASA-Born Software Keeps Cloud Traffic Moving
From your streaming TV queue to the cloud storage where you keep photos, servers now play an important role in our lives. As the world continues to need more from these specialized...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Computers Tough Enough for Space
A tough computer might sound like one that can be dropped from a high table, but in space, computers need to be tough both inside and out. The Center for Space, High-Performance, and Resilient...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
TetrUSS Stacks Up Building Blocks for Aircraft Design
Anyone who excelled at the Game Boy’s top-selling video game will recall the animated rocket liftoffs that celebrated high scores. In addition to simulated rocketry and the...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Flying in the Fast Lane with Air Traffic Software
Think of the national airspace as a complex highway system, but with planes. They’re all moving at different speeds and converging on relatively few airports, intent upon arriving...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Debugging Code Is Rocket Science
Incorrect computer code can blow up rockets, as NASA learned from the first launch in the Ariane 5 rocket series. The 501 rocket used computer code written for the Ariane 4 series – but the change...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Communicating via Long-Distance Lasers
Visible light has been used to communicate for centuries: lanterns on ships and Morse code flashes allowed information to be conveyed at a distance. But now there’s a better way to use light...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Catch the Waves
It’s very important that the highly tuned components in sensitive instruments, whether on a spacecraft or used in a lab, don’t see their own reflection. In sensing devices across the electromagnetic spectrum like...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
In Cloud Computing, Open Source Becomes Big Business
In 2010, open source software, once the playpen of renegade hackers and hobbyists, had already gone mainstream. Cloud computing was newer and less defined, but already commercially...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Recalibrating Fine Motor Skills
A touchscreen control panel similar to an Apple iPad seems like it would be easier to use than a panel of switches and buttons that must be flipped and pushed in the right order. But what if an...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Fix It Like an Astronaut with Augmented Reality
When astronauts on the International Space Station venture outside to install new equipment or perform maintenance, dozens of people on Earth are involved. These extravehicular...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Swarming Technology Lets Drones Work as a Team
NASA Technology
Even before much-anticipated autonomous drones finally take to the sky, the U.S. airspace is saturated, says now-retired Langley Research Center scientist Kennie...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Simulation Software Optimizes High-Speed, Efficient Data Networks
NASA Technology
NASA famously uses simulation software to design spacecraft, predict satellite orbits, and train astronauts. But modeling and simulation are...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Mission Control Conference System Enables Global Collaboration
NASA Technology
Today conference calling is so easy and common it is essentially unremarkable. Share a toll-free phone number and instantly dozens, hundreds, or even...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Smart Sensor Networks Monitor System Health—and Themselves
NASA Technology
When it comes to monitoring and managing the health of any system, sensors are the front-line technology. They gauge a system’s vital signs, such as...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
AURA Software Tackles Uncertainty in Complex Systems
NASA Technology
The software started as a way to evaluate the reliability of systems that look for anomalies in aircraft components and respond to them in flight. Today it is...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Turbopump Modeling Software Propels Fluid-Flow Simulations
NASA Technology
Only 12 people have walked on the Moon. That may soon change—within the next few decades, when it simply becomes a matter of buying a ticket. It will...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Beowulf Clusters Make Supercomputing Accessible
NASA Technology
In the Old English epic Beowulf, the warrior Unferth, jealous of the eponymous hero’s bravery, openly doubts Beowulf’s odds of slaying the monster Grendel that...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Data Visualization Platform Helps Missions Fly
NASA Technology
There are so many pieces to a successful mission in space, and keeping track of it all is no easy task. Software designed to simplify the interface between mission...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Software Toolkit Steadies Rockets
NASA Technology
“Combustion instability is the part of rocket science that makes rocket science hard,” says Paul Gloyer, actual rocket scientist and cofounder of a company that hopes to help...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
NASA Code Speeds Nation’s Aircraft, Spacecraft Design
NASA Technology
In the late 1980s, NASA engineers were working to improve software to simulate how air flowed around vehicles in flight. But the Space Shuttle posed a...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Tiny Star Trackers Help Spacecraft Find Their Place
NASA Technology
NASA tackles some of the biggest questions in the universe, and the tools needed to look for answers are often, themselves, big, in both size and cost. But one...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Low-Cost Transceiver Will Allow First Laser Mass Communication
NASA Technology
Since the advent of the laser in the 1960s, engineers have struggled to use light beams in free space to send information the way we use radio waves....
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Collaborative Platform Trains Students in Simulation and Modeling
NASA Technology
It’s the 2050s. On the far side of the Moon, in the vast, pockmarked South Pole-Aitken Basin impact crater, groups of college students from...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Space Mission Planning System Targets Advertising with Precision
NASA Technology
Most Internet users may not know that every time they see an online ad, it was placed there after a near-instant auction for that slot. Each slot...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Tiny Springs Improve Electronic Reliability
NASA Technology
Space exploration comes with many giant challenges, but some of them are downright tiny. One project to solve a connection issue in printed circuit boards has resulted...