Spinoff: Transportation

Redefining the 'Rugged' Video Camera

A video camera rugged enough to survive the first Space Launch System rocket launch and function in the extreme conditions of space is tough enough for harsh Earth environments. A license and...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Spherical Robots to the Rescue

Dr. Alice Agogino realized the spherical robots she was designing to comb planetary and lunar surfaces could also help first responders assess disaster scenes on Earth. She cofounded Berkeley,...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Satellites ‘See’ Sea Turtles, Ocean Threats

The Argos satellite technology operated by National Center for Space Studies in Ramonville Saint-Agne, France, serves as a wildlife tracking resource. Once an international partnership...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Space-Saving Exploration

Putting the “fun” into functional campers is what Taxa Outdoors Inc. of Houston does using the know-how of a former NASA employee. Design principles developed at Johnson Space Center for living quarters...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Eco-Friendly Bio Breaks

American Innotek Inc. took a polymer utilized in undergarments developed at Johnson Space Center to manage human waste on spacewalks and incorporated it into a bag for use on the go. Sold under the brand...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

From Space to Your Face

A bacterium so resilient it survived NASA’s efforts to sanitize Mars-bound spacecraft is now the basis for a skincare ingredient that boosts SPF in sunscreen and provides antiaging properties in face cream....

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Aqua Solutions for Terra Firma

To provide weather information to underserved farming communities in India, ilika Geospatial LLC of Edison, New Jersey, developed a weather app that uses data from the Aqua and Terra satellites...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Fixing ‘Thermal Incompatibility’ in the Bedroom

In the 1980s, Johnson Space Center explored using phase-change materials use in spacesuits. Funding via a Small Business Innovation Research contract resulted in a commercial...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Synthetic DNA Diagnoses COVID, Cancer

Synthetic DNA used to diagnose diseases such as COVID, hepatitis, and cancer was developed by Firebird Diagnostics LLC of Alachua, Florida, with research funded in part by the NASA Astrobiology...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

NASA Helps Make Connections in Air and Space

When Johnson Space Center needed an Ethernet switch on the Orion capsule to manage data the spacecraft beams back to Earth, DornerWorks Ltd. of Grand Rapids, Michigan, was subcontracted...

Spinoff: Transportation

A Huge Development for Tiny Satellites

To fit tiny satellites into tinier spaces on launch vehicles, Goddard Space Flight Center developed a new equipment-deployment system that’s more reliable than previous solutions. Thermal...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Ballooning Business for Shrinking Cameras

Miniaturized sensors that fly on a zero-pressure balloon collect data and take pictures that are as expansive as satellite images but are more precise. Denver-based Urban Sky Inc. leveraged...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Keeping the Connection

After a Kennedy Space Center test-flight program proved the capability of a tiny radio that enables satellite-to-satellite communication, the Upland, Indiana-based NearSpace Launch Inc. made it commercially...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Farmers Get Tools from Space

IrriWatch BV of Wageningen, Netherlands, uses streams of publicly available data from NASA-built instruments in orbit, including the Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment developed at the...

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...

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

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

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

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

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: 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

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: 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

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

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: 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: 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: 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....