Spinoff: Computer Technology

Laser Imaging Helps Archaeologists Dig Up History

NASA Technology

Some 10,500 years ago, what is now western Oklahoma teemed in late summer and early fall with bison, traipsing through the grassy landscape. For the humans who...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Orion Video Requirement Advances High-Speed, Compact Cameras

NASA Technology

Parachute deployment is usually a fairly simple—if crucial—operation. A small pilot parachute tossed into the wind might pull free a pin securing...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Scheduling Software Plans Public, Private Space Missions

NASA Technology

When Alex and Ella Herz were working at Johnson Space Center in the late 1980s and early ’90s, it wasn’t the easiest time to plan payloads for...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Zinc-Silicate Coating Blocks Corrosion

NASA Technology

NASA needs materials that are strong and can hold up over time. Sometimes that means the Space Agency designs brand-new, high-tech materials—but sometimes it sticks to...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Vibration Tables Shake Up Aerospace, Car Testing

NASA Technology

When handling a multi-billion-dollar space telescope, you want to be pretty careful. Unless it’s your job to shake it with 100,000 pounds of force, that is.

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Astronauts Instruct Newcomers on Peculiarities of Spaceflight

NASA Technology

Few people are more thoroughly trained for their work than astronauts. After all, their already-complex work is carried out in an unforgiving...

Spinoff: Transportation

Reconfigurable Radio Tracks Flights Worldwide

NASA Technology

When Malaysia Air Flight 370 disappeared somewhere over the Indian Ocean in 2014, it had flown far beyond radar range. Under a new space-based air tracking system, no...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Temperature-Regulating Fabrics Keep Babies Comfortable

NASA Technology

NASA’s astronauts are among the world’s most capable, resourceful, and highly trained individuals. Now technology originally created to keep them...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

GPS Correction Technology Lets Tractors Drive Themselves

NASA Technology

There has been much talk of self-driving cars lately, as various automakers and technology companies such as Google race to put the first fully autonomous...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Miniaturized Vacuum Pumps Play Big Roles on Mars and Earth

NASA Technology

As its name implies, the Curiosity rover lowered into Gale Crater on Mars by sky crane in August 2012 has a lot of questions to answer. The most pressing,...

Spinoff: Transportation

Software Opens Computational Fluid Dynamics to the Uninitiated

NASA Technology

Sukra Helitek Inc.’s simplified, user-friendly computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software package began with Ganesh Rajagopalan essentially trying...

Spinoff: Transportation

Design Software Shapes Future Sonic Booms

NASA Technology

It’s been more than 70 years since an airplane first broke the sound barrier, and yet supersonic flights remain mostly out of reach for civilian passengers, in large...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Outgassing Test Facility Brings New Materials into Space Industry

NASA Technology

Anyone who can remember when cars had vinyl dashboards may be familiar with the hazy film that could appear on the windows during a hot, sunny day....

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Polyimide Aerogels Boost Antennas, Insulate Pipes

NASA Technology

The challenge: make a powerful insulating material that is lightweight, strong, and flexible. The goal: an inflatable decelerator that can be folded up inside a...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Privately Built Facility Offers Advantages in Space Exposure Testing

NASA Technology

The conditions of space are, perhaps thankfully, difficult to reproduce on Earth. Most of the universe, beyond the atmospheres of its...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Wire Sensors Alert to Dangerous Conditions in the Clouds

NASA Technology

One common hazard facing airplanes is ice: not just on the ground, but in the air, where it can coat wings or engines. But how do you know when icing...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Active Pixel Sensors Lead Dental Imagery into the Digital Age

NASA Technology

They’re in your cell phone camera and probably in your handheld digital camera, but they may have been in your dentist’s X-ray machine first:...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Large-Scale 3D Printer Brings Manufacturing to the Masses

NASA Technology

When the nearest Home Depot is out of reach and Amazon.com doesn’t deliver, finding spare parts or a new tool can be a challenge. That can be true...

Spinoff: Transportation

Unmanned Research Aircraft Test Cutting-Edge Innovations

Born out of a desire for aircraft to be able to take off and land capably at airports with shorter runways to alleviate congestion at the major hubs, the circulation control wing...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Software Helps Restore Fire-Ravaged Habitats

NASA Technology

Idaho is a nature-lover’s dream. Forests there blanket swaths of terrain, from the glassy lake regions of the northern Panhandle to the famous trout-fishing streams...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Electrospray Thrusters Boost Efficiency, Precision

NASA Technology

When NASA thrusters are mentioned, most people imagine something like the breathtaking launch of the Saturn V rocket that sent astronauts to the Moon. Its five...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

DigitalClone Software Predicts, Extends Machine Life

NASA Technology

Medical scientists have made great progress in recent years toward understanding how genetic factors play a role in an individual’s susceptibility or...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Mars Rover Work Spawns PDF Collaboration Software

NASA Technology

Like satellites in orbit, some spinoffs just keep spinning.

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Laser Vision Helps Hubble, Package Shippers See Clearly

NASA Technology

For more than 25 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has provided stunning photos of the universe unequalled in their depth, detail, and distinction. Hubble...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Tool Kit Simplifies Development of High-Affinity Molecules

NASA Technology

As NASA sets its sights on long-duration missions deeper into the solar system, including a planned mission to Mars, astronauts will need access to...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

NODE+ Platform Integrates Sensors with Smartphones

NASA Technology

In 2007, when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a call for a sensor that could equip a smartphone with the ability to detect dangerous gases and...

Spinoff: Transportation

Open Source Aircraft Design Software Helps Industry, Hobbyists

NASA Technology

The old saying about the inability to build a better mousetrap could also apply to aircraft design tools. For years, the best, and maybe only, way to...

Spinoff: Public Safety

GPS Sensor Web Helps Forecasters Warn of Monsoon Flash Floods

NASA Technology

In the American Southwest and in northwestern Mexico, more than half the annual rainfall often comes in the form of the torrential and unpredictable...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Analytic Tool Simplifies Metal Fracture Assessments

NASA Technology

When NASA builds a spacecraft, materials engineers at the Agency have the important task of assessing the structural properties of the materials that comprise...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Precision Coffeemaker Adapts Brews to Beans, Taste

NASA Technology

Technology often takes circuitous paths. A magnetron developed for precision bombing during World War II led to the microwave oven, and a battery-powered drill...