Topic

Power Amplifiers Boost Radar, Communications, Defense Systems

NASA Technology Normally, state-of-the-art technology comes at a cost. But when QuinStar Technology was subcontracted in 2009 to build a power amplifier for one of NASA Jet...

Satellite Imagery Sheds Light on Agricultural Water Use

NASA Technology Earth may be the “Blue Planet,” with more than 70 percent of its surface covered in water, but it is still a thirsty planet, with freshwater in heavy demand. The most...

Earth Observation Spots, Helps Prevent Rainforest Fires

NASA Technology Since the launch of the first Landsat satellite in 1972, NASA’s observations of Earth from space have famously been used for charting trends in climate, land cover,...

Mini Heat Pipes Wick Away Heat in Brain Surgery

NASA Technology Neurosurgery is one of those things where you want the tools to be as precise and reliable as possible. One important tool of the trade, bipolar forceps, uses electricity to cut...

Carbon Nanotube Resin Shores Up Boats, Bikes

NASA Technology At 100 times the strength of steel and just one-sixth the weight, it is easy to see why engineers, and not just at NASA, were immediately excited by the potential in carbon...

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 lived then, the...

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 the main...

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 spaceflight.

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 industry standards,...

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.

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 environment that plays...

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 plane would...

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 comfortable in space is...

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 vehicle on the...

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, though, is...

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 to work himself...

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 part because of...

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. This was the...

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 spacecraft and...

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 occasional planets, is...

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 conditions exist up...

HMI Development: More Features, less System Complexity

Human machine interfaces are changing rapidly as radio head units handle more functions and connect to diverse systems inside and outside the vehicle. HMI systems are being...

Connectivity Advances Dominate at CES 2017

If there’s any doubt that connectivity is the next wave for advanced features and functions, it should dissipate after CES 2017. A multitude of advances in over the air updates and security will...

Delphi Showcasing Next-Gen Autonomous System at CES 2017

Delphi will use CES 2017 to demonstrate an advanced new automated-driving technology platform the company plans to make available to automakers by 2019 as a complete system to enable...

The Impact of Shifting to the ‘Softer’ Side

Welcome to Supplier Eye, a new monthly column that explores the changes facing our industry and analyze the impact—of new technologies, regulations, business dynamics and consumer...

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: image sensors based...

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 whether you’re...

New Products

PRODUCT OF THE MONTH — Magnetic Hyperthermia System MSI Automation, Wichita, KS, has introduced a magnetic hyperthermia system for the magnetic heating of nanoparticles. The system is designed for developing the proper thermal...