The technologies NASA develops don’t just blast off into space. They also improve our lives here on Earth. Life-saving search-and-rescue tools, implantable medical devices, advances in commercial aircraft safety, increased accuracy in weather forecasting, and the miniature cameras in our cellphones are just...

FACET: Future Air Traffic Management Concepts Evaluation Tool

FACET flexible software helps air traffic control centers improve airline safety and efficiency. It includes programs and databases that implement models of weather, airspace, airports, navigation aids, aircraft performance, and...

Electronic Firefighter Escape Trail

This technology uses recent advances in Radio Frequency Identification Devices, combined with smart software, to create an electronic firefighter evacuation trail and fire safety information location system. The trail can be followed out of a burning...

NASA’s Technology Transfer Program is a true national asset. It brings together the space agency’s most capable problem-solvers with America’s brightest commercial and entrepreneurial leaders in partnerships that transfer groundbreaking NASA technologies to the public. It provides solutions for challenges in the...

High-Field Superconducting Magnets

This technology represents a significant improvement over commercial state-of-the-art magnets. These superconducting magnets are very versatile and can be used in a number of applications requiring magnetic fields at low temperature, such as in MRI...

Contaminated Water Treatment

This method offers a way of processing and recycling liquids to remove contaminants. The two-step process provides a contaminant treatment pouch, called a “urine cell” or “contaminant cell,” that converts urine or another liquid containing contaminants into a...

Atomic Oxygen Texturing and Cleaning

Atomic oxygen oxidizes and removes biologically active contaminants, and reduces the contaminant to an inactive ash. Thus, the contaminant is both sterile and biologically inactive. The resulting surface is entirely free of any bacteria,...

Enhanced Project Management Tool

This invention is a system for managing a project that includes multiple tasks and workers. Periodic monthly, task plan, schedule, and budget reports are generated and made available for display or further analysis. When the system receives a...

Powder Handling Device for Analytical Instruments

This technology provides automated sample handling and movement of coarse-grained powder or other solid materials to enable analysis by a robotic or totally automated computer system. The powder is handled as a fluid, using mechanical...

Variable Power Handheld Laser Torch

A handheld laser torch was designed for welding and brazing metals to repair hard-to-reach space shuttle engine nozzles. It incorporates various manual controls and changing lenses to allow the operator to adjust the laser’s power output in...

Shape Memory Alloys

Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs) can be deformed at low temperature and recover their original shape upon heating. New alloys can operate up to ~300 °C, compared to ~80 °C for commercially available alloys. SMAs can be used in adaptive structures, actuators, heat...

Spring Joint Package with Overstrain Sensor

This flexible joint provides two degrees of freedom and a tremendous amount of compliance. The overstrain sensor joint has a passive and restoring force that allows the joint to return to a default position, and is also proportional to...

Model-Based Prognostics For Batteries

Effective Battery Health Monitoring (BHM) technologies are needed to ensure that battery operation is optimal and, if not, that it stays within design limits. BHM technologies protect the asset’s batteries from degradation due to non-optimal...