NASA has featured a number of technologies already in use by 50 companies and the current investments the space agency makes to help fulfill various mission requirements in its Spinoff 2017 issue.
The publication highlights several technologies such as self-driving tractor for food harvest, cameras for use in car-crash safety tests and brain surgery tools, NASA said Monday.
“The stories published in Spinoff represent the end of a technology transfer pipeline that begins when researchers and engineers at NASA develop innovations to meet mission needs,” said Stephen Jurczyk, associate administrator of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington.
Spinoff 2017 contains stories on how NASA’s GPS measurements built at its Jet Propulsion Laboratory helped John Deere to develop the first self-driving tractors and how the agency’s heat pipes investment at its Glenn Research Center enabled Thermacore to prevent dangerous heat during brain surgery.
The publication also features a high-resolution camera, designed to track the Orion spacecraft’s landing parachutes at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, helps improve crash test data for automobile.
Part of NASA’s Technology Transfer Program, the publication also details 20 technologies ready for commercial use such as a new wing design for airplanes and wind turbines and a device for the separation of DNA, RNA and proteins outside a traditional laboratory.
