Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Toolkits Control Motion of Complex Robotics

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

That space is a hazardous environment for humans is common knowledge. Even beyond the obvious lack of air and gravity, the extreme temperatures...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Advanced Sensors Boost Optical Communication, Imaging

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

In 1992, on a gravity assist flyby of Earth that would help propel it along its mission to Jupiter, NASA’s Galileo probe detected a...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Tensile Fabrics Enhance Architecture Around the World

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

On a Friday night in March 2008, fans at a college basketball game at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome noticed the stadium’s scoreboard...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Thermoelectric Devices Cool, Power Electronics

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

More than 10 billion miles away from Earth, a NASA spacecraft continues a journey that began in 1977. Having long since accomplished its...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Robust Light Filters Support Powerful Imaging Devices

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Consider the anatomy of a rainbow: From the inner arch, violet shifts to blue, then green, yellow, and red. Contained in the rainbow...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Innovative Tools Advance Revolutionary Weld Technique

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

The iconic, orange external tank of the space shuttle launch system not only contains the fuel used by the shuttle’s main engines...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Methods Reduce Cost, Enhance Quality of Nanotubes

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

For all the challenges posed by the microgravity conditions of space, weight is actually one of the more significant problems NASA faces...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Gauging Systems Monitor Cryogenic Liquids

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Rocket fuel needs to stay cool—super cool, in fact. The ability to store gas propellants like liquid hydrogen and oxygen at cryogenic...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Voltage Sensors Monitor Harmful Static

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Anyone who has ever experienced an unpleasant jolt from a doorknob after shuffling across the carpet on a dry morning knows that static...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Compact Instruments Measure Heat Potential

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Without the insulating protection of Earth’s atmosphere, orbiting space shuttles, space stations, and satellites are subject to thermal...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

NASA Innovation Builds Better Nanotubes

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

One of the basic nanotechnology structures, the carbon nanotube, is a graphite sheet one atomic layer thick that is wrapped on...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Polyimide Boosts High-Temperature Performance

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Polyimides are a class of polymers notable for chemical, wear, radiation, and temperature resistance, characteristics that...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

NASA Design Strengthens Welds

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

The Welding Institute (TWI), a nonprofit professional organization based out of the United Kingdom and devoted to the industry of joining...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Portable Device Analyzes Rocks and Minerals

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Building on the success of the two rover geologists that arrived on Mars in January 2004, NASA’s next rover mission is being...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Sensors Increase Productivity in Harsh Environments

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

A team of scientists at Glenn Research Center, operating under the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate’s...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Novel Process Revolutionizes Welding Industry

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Deformation resistance welding (DRW) is a revolutionary welding process—a new technique for joining metals—in an...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Open-Lattice Composite Design Strengthens Structures

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

NASA has invested considerable time and energy working with academia and private industry to develop new composite structures that are...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Ultra-Sensitive Photoreceiver Boosts Data Transmission

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

In June 2006, NASA scientists used extensive data transmitted from the Chandra X-ray Observatory deep space telescope to prove that...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Portable Hyperspectral Imaging Broadens Sensing Horizons

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

All objects reflect a certain amount of energy, even if it is just the electromagnetic energy created by the movement of...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Micro Machining Enhances Precision Fabrication

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

In President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 State of the Union address, he announced plans for a U.S. space station, the equivalent of the Russian...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Hypersonic Composites Resist Extreme Heat and Stress

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

On October 14, 1947, Captain Charles “Chuck” Yeager made history when he became the first pilot in an officially documented flight...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

‘NASA Invention of the Year’ Controls Noise and Vibration

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Developed at NASA’s Langley Research Center, the Macro-Fiber Composite (MFC) is an innovative, low-cost piezoelectric...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Thermoelectric Devices Advance Thermal Management

When NASA programs need the ultimate reliability to power deep space probes, they repeatedly select thermoelectric (TE) devices as a system component. TE devices heat, cool, and generate...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Computational Modeling Develops Ultra-Hard Steel

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Glenn Research Center’s Mechanical Components Branch routinely conducts research on transmissions and gearing for advanced gas turbines,...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Thin, Light, Flexible Heaters Save Time and Energy

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Ice accumulation is a serious safety hazard for aircraft. The presence of ice on airplane surfaces prevents the even flow of air, which...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Novel Nanotube Manufacturing Streamlines Production

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Nanotubes are sheets of graphite, one atom thick, rolled into seamless cylinders, with an exterior diameter in the range of nanometers....

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Material Analysis And Identification

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

KeyMaster Technologies, Inc., develops and markets specialized, hand-held X-ray fluorescence (XRF) instruments and unique tagging technology used to...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Reading Through Paint

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Two-dimensional data matrix symbols, which contain encoded letters and numbers, are permanently etched on items for identification. They can store up to 100 times...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Fluid Flow Technology That Measures Up

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

From 1994 to 1996, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center conducted a Center Director's Discretionary Fund research effort to apply artificial...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Providing A Turn For The Better

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Engineers are tasked with designing new systems every day to meet changing or unexpected technical requirements. After the tragic explosion of the Space...