NASA Spinoff
Transportation
Spinoff: Transportation
Orbital Trajectory Analyzer Takes Mission Planning to New Heights
NASA Technology
There’s some wizardry involved in sending a rocket or other spacecraft beyond the oppressive reach of Earth’s gravity. Long before the first...
Spinoff: Transportation
Flight Controller Software Protects Lightweight, Flexible Aircraft
NASA Technology
Since its founding in 1958, NASA has made profound contributions to aviation, including advancing our understanding of flight mechanics—the...
Spinoff: Transportation
IonoSTAGE Ensures Accuracy of Pilots’ GPS
NASA Technology
To permit safe and reliable aircraft navigation over North America using the Global Positioning System (GPS), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has developed the...
Spinoff: Transportation
Aircraft Geared Architecture Reduces Fuel Cost and Noise
NASA Technology
Just 12 years after the Wright brothers became the first to take to the skies in a powered airplane, in 1915 Congress established the National Advisory...
Spinoff: Transportation
Ubiquitous Supercritical Wing Design Cuts Billions in Fuel Costs
NASA Technology
By the time he was visiting what is now known as Armstrong Flight Research Center to witness the first tests of his latest creation, Richard T....
Spinoff: Transportation
Cabin Pressure Monitors Notify Pilots to Save Lives
NASA Technology
Typical cruising altitudes for business and commercial aircraft are up to 50,000 feet or more. At such altitudes, the oxygen concentrations in the air are much...
Spinoff: Transportation
NASA Standards Inform Comfortable Car Seats
NASA Technology
In the beginning, safety trumped comfort in spacecraft designs for human space travel. Mihriban Whitmore, a manager in the Human Research Program at NASA’s Johnson...
Spinoff: Transportation
Data Mining Tools Make Flights Safer, More Efficient
NASA Technology
When an aircraft experiences catastrophic failure, it’s not difficult to tell that something has gone wrong. But even if an airplane reaches its destination...
Spinoff: Transportation
Experiments Result in Safer, Spin-Resistant Aircraft
NASA Technology
James M. Patton Jr. completed a whopping 8,000 spin turns throughout his career at NASA. As a research pilot at Langley Research Center, Patton and his...
Spinoff: Transportation
Heat Shield Paves the Way for Commercial Space
NASA Technology
Comets are beautiful, and apparently it’s a youthful kind of beauty, because they look about the same from the time they were born. Often referred to as dirty...
Spinoff: Transportation
Interfaces Visualize Data for Airline Safety, Efficiency
NASA Technology
It was Henry Ford who said, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” Following such an adage,...
Spinoff: Transportation
Anti-Icing Formulas Prevent Train Delays
NASA Technology
In the winter of 2009, Washington, DC, workers faced the prospect of a difficult commute due to record-setting snowfalls. But thousands of the city’s Metrorail riders...
Spinoff: Transportation
Shuttle Repair Tools Automate Vehicle Maintenance
NASA Technology
Successfully building, flying, and maintaining the space shuttles was an immensely complex job that required a high level of detailed, precise engineering. After...
Spinoff: Transportation
Pressure-Sensitive Paints Advance Rotorcraft Design Testing
NASA Technology
The rotors of certain helicopters can spin at speeds as high as 500 revolutions per minute. As the blades slice through the air, they flex, moving into the wind and back out, experiencing pressure changes on the order of thousands of times a second and even...
Spinoff: Transportation
Speech Recognition Interfaces Improve Flight Safety
NASA Technology
“Alpha, Golf, November, Echo, Zulu.” “Sierra, Alpha, Golf, Echo, Sierra.” “Lima, Hotel, Yankee.”
It looks like some strange word game, but the...
Spinoff: Transportation
Polymers Advance Heat Management Materials for Vehicles
NASA Technology
For 6 years prior to the retirement of the Space Shuttle Program, the shuttles carried an onboard repair kit with a tool for emergency use: two tubes of...
Spinoff: Transportation
Wireless Sensors Pinpoint Rotorcraft Troubles
NASA Technology
Helicopters present many advantages over fixed-wing aircraft: they can take off from and land in tight spots, they can move in any direction with relative ease, and...
Spinoff: Transportation
Cameras Improve Navigation for Pilots, Drivers
NASA Technology
After 10 months of traveling through deep space to Mars, the Phoenix Lander finally approached its destination. The last 7 minutes of the spacecraft’s 423...
Spinoff: Transportation
Integrated Design Tools Reduce Risk, Cost
NASA Technology
As NASA designs new spacecraft for its science missions and begins designs for the next generation of human spaceflight vehicles, it also works to revolutionize Earth’s...
Spinoff: Transportation
Advisory Systems Save Time, Fuel for Airlines
NASA Technology
Heinz Erzberger never thought the sky was falling, but he knew it could benefit from enhanced traffic control. Throughout the 1990s, Erzberger led a team at Ames...
Spinoff: Transportation
Modeling Programs Increase Aircraft Design Safety
NASA Technology
“Flutter” may sound like a benign word when associated with a flag in a breeze, a butterfly, or seaweed in an ocean current. When used in the context of...
Spinoff: Transportation
Fly-by-Wire Systems Enable Safer, More Efficient Flight
NASA Technology
In 1961, not long after NASA received the imperative from President John F. Kennedy to land a man on the Moon within the decade, then-NASA administrator...
Spinoff: Transportation
Sensor Systems Collect Critical Aerodynamics Data
Originating Technology/NASA Contribution
The next time you blow out a candle, watch how the smoke behaves. You will see that it rises first in an even stream. At a certain point,...
Spinoff: Transportation
Coatings Extend Life of Engines and Infrastructure
Originating Technology/NASA Contribution
Every time a jet engine is started, it goes through a thermal cycle of extreme temperatures, reaching as high as 2,700 °F within the...
Spinoff: Transportation
Programs Model the Future of Air Traffic Management
Originating Technology/NASA Contribution
Try describing the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS), and you will inevitably end up rattling off a series of large numbers. There are...
Spinoff: Transportation
Tail Rotor Airfoils Stabilize Helicopters, Reduce Noise
Originating Technology/NASA Contribution
Given the eye-catching nature of space shuttle launches, deep-space imagery, and Mars exploration, it can be easy to forget NASA’s...
Spinoff: Transportation
Personal Aircraft Point to the Future of Transportation
Originating Technology/NASA Contribution
In the late 1970s, general aviation (GA) in the United States was experiencing its heyday. In 1978, as many as 18,000 GA aircraft...
Spinoff: Transportation
Ducted Fan Designs Lead to Potential New Vehicles
Originating Technology/NASA Contribution
From the myth of Icarus, who flew too close to the Sun on wings made of wax, to the designs Leonardo da Vinci drew of flying machines that...
Spinoff: Transportation
Winglets Save Billions of Dollars in Fuel Costs
Originating Technology/NASA Contribution
Anyone who has made a paper airplane knows that folding the wingtips upward makes your plane look better and fly farther, though the reasons...
Spinoff: Transportation
Tools Lighten Designs, Maintain Structural Integrity
Originating Technology/NASA Contribution
While working on designs for a new high-speed aircraft, a group of software engineers at NASA’s Langley Research Center developed a...