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: 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: 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: 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: Computer Technology

Mars Rover Work Spawns PDF Collaboration Software

NASA Technology

Like satellites in orbit, some spinoffs just keep spinning.

Alliance Spacesystems, founded by a handful of engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion...

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: 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: Public Safety

Underwater Adhesives Retrofit Pipelines with Advanced Sensors

NASA Technology

B y the time the gas you fill your car with hits the engine, it’s been through quite a journey. Even apart from its transformation from organic...

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: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Custom 3D Printers Revolutionize the Space Supply Chain

NASA Technology

Like a desert caravan, a space flight crew has to bring with it everything it will need over the course of its journey into an utterly barren environment....

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...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Improved Calibration Shows Images’ True Colors

NASA Technology

In satellite images, the waters of the Pearl River, which winds around NASA’s Stennis Space Center, are about the same brownish green typical of waterways the...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Micromachined Parts Advance Medicine, Astrophysics, and More

NASA Technology

Anyone who remembers the Micro Machines line of toys might be surprised to learn that the tiny model vehicles are positively gargantuan compared with...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Magnetic Fluids Deliver Better Speaker Sound Quality

NASA Technology

In the early 1960s NASA scientists were trying to work around a major problem for orbiting spacecraft: how to move fuel into an engine without the benefit of...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Space Grant Research Launches Rehabilitation Chair

NASA Technology

A stay on the International Space Station is no vacation. During a visit to the orbiting National Laboratory, astronauts divide their time among a variety of...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Metalworking Techniques Unlock a Unique Alloy

NASA Technology

Half a century ago, a scientist at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory discovered that an alloy containing 60 percent nickel and 40 percent titanium could provide...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Low-Cost Sensors Deliver Nanometer-Accurate Measurements

NASA Technology

Carlos Capiro gathers his thoughts to relate how a single NASA sensor led to a product poised to disrupt his industry. “Really, a lot of it had to do...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

3D Endoscope to Boost Safety, Cut Costs of Surgery

NASA Technology

“A lot of things are not easy to solve when you’re trying to break through a new technology right from the get-go,” says Harish Manohara, supervisor of the...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Compact Vapor Chamber Cools Critical Components

NASA Technology

Before the Apollo program sent the first men to the surface of the moon in 1969, in the early-to-mid-1960s NASA’s Project Gemini performed much of the fundamental...

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: Public Safety

3D Lasers Increase Efficiency, Safety of Moving Machines

NASA Technology

As NASA planned the logistics for a proposed space station, called Space Station Freedom, in the early 1990s, one of the agency’s concerns was ensuring...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Landsat Data Enriches Google Earth

NASA Technology

When NASA launched the Earth Resources Technology Satellite, later known as Landsat, in July 1972, the first spacecraft dedicated to monitoring Earth’s surface carried two...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Vision Trainer Teaches Focusing Techniques at Home

NASA Technology

Inventions often find unintended uses. The first mechanical clocks in Europe were intended to track the motions of celestial bodies and found their original...

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: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Balance Devices Train Golfers for a Consistent Swing

NASA Technology

After a stint in space, astronauts’ minds and bodies take some time to readjust to life on Earth. While the human body adapts relatively quickly to a lack of...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Improved Calibration Shows Images' True Colors

NASA Technology

In satellite images, the waters of the Pearl River, which winds around NASA’s Stennis Space Center, are about the same brownish green typical of waterways the...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Dry Lubricant Smooths the Way for Space Travel, Industry

NASA Technology

Most of the power, communications, imaging, and computing technology on the Mariner planetary space probes—cutting-edge at the time—is now the NASA...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Water Mapping Technology Rebuilds Lives in Arid Regions

NASA Technology

Turkana County in northwest Kenya has been reeling from several years of crippling drought. As a consequence, the nomadic peoples in the region have...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Cloud Computing Technologies Facilitate Earth Research

NASA Technology

Throughout the years, NASA has done more than any agency to explore what lies beyond our world. It has sent rovers to traverse the Martian landscape and...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Charged Particles Kill Pathogens and Round Up Dust

NASA Technology

Before astronauts are able to undertake long-term missions into the solar system, they’ll need technologies that allow them to grow their own fruits and...