The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Strategic Partnership Office (SPO) team participated in Maryland Aerospace Day on February 13, 2024, at the Graduate Hotel. This event, organized by the Aerospace States Association – Maryland Chapter and the Maryland Space Business Roundtable (MSBR), aimed to foster industry networking, policy development, and educational discussions to advance Maryland’s aerospace community and economic development. The gathering highlighted the importance of collaboration within the aerospace sector, featuring engaging discussions between industry leaders, government officials, and the aerospace community. The NASA GSFC team’s involvement underscored their commitment to promoting aerospace innovation and collaboration in Maryland and beyond.
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NASA GSFC SPO Joins Maryland Aerospace Day 2024
Goddard Highlights at 37th Annual SmallSat Conference
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center stood out at the 37th Annual SmallSat Conference in Logan, Utah, showcasing its leadership in small satellite technology. The event, the largest of its kind with 3,700 attendees from 44 countries, featured Goddard’s booth as a prime attraction in the NASA Lounge, managed by the Strategic Partnership Office (SPO) and Small Satellite and Special Project Office (S3PO).
Goddard’s participation highlighted its contributions to Distributed Systems Mission (DSM) concepts and advancements in technology for missions beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO), including the GTOSat mission aimed at studying Earth’s magnetosphere. The team also discussed opportunities for licensing Goddard’s patented technologies, such as the Modular Architecture for a Resilient Extensible SmallSat (MARES).
The conference facilitated valuable networking and collaboration opportunities, with Goddard’s booth drawing significant interest for its innovative displays and discussions on small satellite development. Additionally, Goddard’s engineers and scientists delivered over 30 technical presentations, further emphasizing the center’s pivotal role in the small satellite community.
Prince George’s County Economic Development Corporation Event featuring SPO Chief, Darryl Mitchell
At the event hosted by the Prince George’s County Economic Development Corporation (PGEDC), Darryl Mitchell, Chief of the Strategic Partnership Office (SPO) at NASA Goddard, engaged with the Prince George’s County Tech Council (PGCTC) members and guests in a dynamic panel discussion. The “Partnering with NASA Goddard” event, held in Largo, Maryland, aimed to enlighten local businesses about the myriad opportunities for collaboration with Goddard. Mitchell, alongside other notable speakers such as Congressman Glenn Ivey, emphasized the potential for small businesses to grow through partnerships and licensing agreements with NASA, highlighting the agency’s Tech Transfer Program. This initiative offers access to groundbreaking research and technologies developed at Goddard, fostering innovation and expansion within the local business community.
Professional Athletes Tackle Tech Transfer and Commercialization at NASA
In the 1960s, two famous American establishments were hitting their stride. The first Super Bowl took place in 1967, and two years later, NASA landed men on the Moon. Now, more than five decades later, American football and the space agency are coming together in the name of technology transfer.
New Frontiers: Goddard X-ray technology has a diverse range of applications
Time and time again, the path of basic research takes surprising twists and turns.
“Why does NASA spend money on technologies to look at black holes when there are so many things on Earth we need to fix?” asks Keith Gendreau, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It turns out that the work we do here impacts people in tangible ways.”
Molecular Adsorber Coating Flies on NASA Missions
Nithin Abraham works at the Smithsonian’s Museum Support Center in Suitland, Maryland. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
Every day, we’re surrounded by billions of tiny, unseen objects. Molecules of all kinds float like invisible motes of dust, impossible to detect with the naked eye but sometimes discernable through smell.
“Think about when you buy a home — you may have new furniture, such as sofas, mattresses, or memory foam pillows, and freshly painted rooms,” says Nithin Abraham, a thermal coatings engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “These common household items often have a new smell associated with them, and it’s a result of volatile organic compounds being released into the air.”
As part of her job, Abraham has to think on the tiniest of scales. At NASA, she works on coatings technology research efforts. Specifically, she tries to address molecular contamination, finding ways to keep molecules from interfering with delicate instruments bound for space. Even the smallest deposition of chemical species on a sensitive telescope mirror can keep it from working properly. [Read more…]
NASA, Women’s National Basketball Players Association Team Up for Tech Transfer Partnership
On the heels of last month’s first-ever all-woman spacewalk, NASA and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) announced a partnership to provide professional basketball players with opportunities to explore the agency’s technology licensing and its various applications.
NASA Spinoff Company Launches Beta Test of Wellness App
The HealthReel wellness app provides the user with metrics on his or her body composition and metabolism.
Health and fitness have played a role throughout Superbowl champion Obafemi Ayanbadejo’s life. After retiring from the NFL, Ayanbadejo graduated with his MBA from Johns Hopkins University and began pursuing a career as an entrepreneur.
In 2018, he worked with the Strategic Partnerships Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to license a patented NASA algorithm with relevance to the health industry, and now, Ayanbadejo is beta testing a new mobile wellness app that seeks to provide highly accurate and detailed metrics on personal health. The app, known as HealthReel, uses the NASA algorithm and a personal smartphone camera to collect data and generate information on an individual’s body fat percentage, ideal caloric intake, and approximate risk for health conditions, among other stats. [Read more…]
Upcoming Industry Day Welcomes Domestic Companies to Goddard
The Robotic Operations Center acts as an incubator for satellite servicing technologies that will allow NASA to repair, refuel, and upgrade spacecraft. In this lab, engineers test robotic capabilities in space-like conditions before they are put to action in orbit. Photo credit: NASA
The Robotic Operations Center at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center is the testing ground for new technologies in development by the Satellite Servicing Projects Division (SSPD), a Goddard team dedicated to ending the era of “one-and-done” spacecraft through robotic servicing missions. Now, NASA’s technologists and technology transfer professionals are seeking to transfer these technologies to interested U.S. companies, ultimately helping to jumpstart a competitive market. [Read more…]
Athletes Score Tech Transfer Knowledge at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Participants of the meeting gathered in the NASA Goddard Visitor Center at the end of the day. Photo credit: NASA Goddard/Taylor Mickal
On July 24, NBA athletes with the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) visited NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland to learn about NASA’s technology transfer and commercialization opportunities. [Read more…]