Andrew Petro/Doug ComstockDirector, Innovative Partnerships Program – NASA Headquarters

NASA Project Management Challenge 2010Galveston, TexasFebruary 9, 2010

Meeting NASA’s Technology Challenges Through Innovation and Collaboration

Used with permission

Innovative Partnerships Program

Matching Technology Needs with Technology Capabilities

Innovative Partnerships Program Elements

TechnologyInfusion

• Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)

• Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR)

• IPP Seed Fund

InnovationIncubator

• Centennial Challenges

• FAST/CRuSR• Innovation

Transfusion• Innovative

Technology• New Business

Models

PartnershipDevelopment

• Intellectual Property Management

• Technology Transfer

• New Innovative Partnerships

What Does IPP Provide?

• Funding or Leveraged Resources– NASA SBIR/STTR funds several hundred small

businesses – IPP Seed Fund seeks partnerships to leverage resources

with the private sector and other Federal labs– Centennial Challenges offers millions in purses

• Technology and Software– Access through licensing or other partnerships

• Access to Facilities and Test Capabilities– Access to NASA’s facilities through partnerships– Technology demonstration opportunities through FAST

• Expertise– Access to NASA’s technical expertise through partnerships

• Facilitation to enable partnerships• Advocacy as a change agent to try new things

Earth Science

Aeronautics Research

NASA Mission Directorates

Space Operations

Space Shuttle SpaceCommunications

SpaceTransportationISS

Exploration Systems

Cost

SafetyProductivity

SciencePlanetaryScience

Astrophysics

Fundamental Aeronautics Aviation Safety

Aeronautics Test

Airspace SystemsManagement

& Policy

Heliophysics

Multifunctional Intelligence

High performanceweight

Extreme Temperature Resistance

ExtremeRadiation

Resistance

MeteoriteImpact

&Dust

Resistance

Ultra-sensitive Signal capture

• Lunar Surface:-233 °C to 123 °C

• Mars Surface:-87 °C to -5 °C

• Mission to Europa:1-5 Mrads

• Highly electrostatic• Ultrafine• Human Habitats

• Launch $• Aeronautics Applications• Human Habitats

• Scientific Productivity• Human “Amplifiers”• IVHM

• Voyager:Signal From 9.3 x 109 mi

Technology In Extreme Environments

IPP Technology for Mission Directorates

Innovative Partnerships Program

Mission Directorates• Programs• Projects

Technology Needs• Communication

Technology Infusion• Bridging the “Valley

of Death”• Narrow the gap and

reduce risk• Begin building

bridges early

• SBIR/STTR• Centennial Challenges• Seed Fund• Partnerships

Executed at the Field Centers

Executed at the Field Centers

SBIR Technology Infusion ExamplesM

ars

Expl

orat

ion

Rov

ers

Spac

e Sh

uttle

and

ISS

Star

dust

and

Orio

nM

ars

Phoe

nix

Land

er

“Dust to Thrust” on Mauna Kea w/4 SBIRs

Fiber Optic Solar Concentrator from PSI Carbothermal Reduction from Orbitec

Pneumatic Regolith Feed from Honeybee Lox/Methane Engine from Wask

“Dust to Thrust” ISRU Tech Demo

Water collected from the Tephra.

Tephra ‘puck’ after melting.

Tephra during melt.

Lox/Methane thruster firing.

Technologies and Firms are Searchable

https://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/sbir/search/fundedTechSearch.jsp

Hallmarks of Success

NASA “Hallmarks of Success”video stories highlighting some of NASA’s premierInfusion and Commercialization successes

• About 75 videos, most on SBIR/STTR firms

• Can be found on NASA TV, DVDs, SBIR/STTR website, YouTube, and iTunes

• Dozens of videos documenting successful technology development between NASA and small business through the SBIR/STTR Programs

• Featured technologies reflect transfer and mission integration successes

• Used as an instruction tool for how to successfully infuse and commercialize technology

• DVDs available for distribution

IPP Seed Fund

Advancement of Technology Readiness Level

3 years of projects$19M in IPP Seed Funding$53.8 M in non-IPP funds

Leveraging

IPP Seed Fund Demographics

Broad array of partners

94 partners35 states and Canada

IPP Seed Fund Partnerships – Leveraged R&D

• The First Stage of a Highly Reusable Reliable Launch System (FS-HRRLS) demonstrated alternative technologies that could reduce the cost of access to space.

• The HRRLS focuses on the development of a high-speed electromagnetic launch system to capitalize a portion of the reusable launch system costs on the ground.

• The current state of the art of bench proto-type equipment, developed in the previous decade, was limited to 60 mph and 15 lbs.

• The HRRLS demonstration project increased this speed to 300 mph and lower the weight to 10 lbs.

Lunar Analog Field Demonstrations OfIn-Situ Resource Utilization & Human Robotic Systems

NASA Co-Investigators:William E. Larson, KSC; Gerald B. Sanders & Robert O. Ambrose, JSC

External Partners:Jim Crisafulli (State of Hawaii) – Director, Office of Aerospace Development

Frank Schowengerdt (Univ. of Hawaii) – PISCES Lead

Pilot / Bucketdrum

RESOLVE / Scarab Rover

ROxygen / Cratos

Innovation Incubator Highlights

• Centennial Challenges - Incentive Prizes– Seeking technology solutions from new sources for NASA and the nation– Five competition events in 2009

• $3.65M in prizes awarded to eight different teams – Announced new Green Flight Challenge for supper-efficient aircraft– Will announce several new challenges in 2010

• FAST and CRuSR– Seeking to advance technology maturity and promote use of commercial services.– Using parabolic flight services for zero and reduced-gravity technology testing– 19 projects flown in 2009, will offer similar opportunity in 2010– CRuSR program initiated to support future use of suborbital vehicles for research

• Innovation Transfusion– Seeking to tap into external sources of innovation to benefit NASA.– Two Innovation Ambassadors assignments begun in 2009, more planned for 2010– Innovation Scout visits planed for 2010

• Innovative Technology Initiative– Supporting proof-of-concept projects for “game-changing” technologies– Funded 20 projects across NASA in 2009, selected from over 230 proposals– Expanding program for 2010 and beyond

Centennial Challenges

NASA Prizes for the Citizen-Inventor• 19 competitions held since 2005, $4.5M in prizes

awarded to 13 different teams

• Five competition events in 2009• $3.65M in prizes awarded to eight different teams• Regolith Excavation – robotic devices to exploit lunar resources

• Three winners, among 23 competing teams, claimed $750K• Lunar Lander – robust, reusable rocket-powered vehicles

• Three teams flew a total of five vehicles, two teams shared $1.65M in prizes• Power Beaming – wireless power transmission over a 1 kilometer distance

• $900K won by one team in an unprecedented technology demonstration• Astronaut Glove – new techniques for strong, flexible gloves

• $350K won by two veteran competitors • Strong Tether – seeking materials 50% stronger than best existing

• Two-meter long carbon nano-tube tether demonstrated, but no winner

• Announced new Green Flight Challenge for super-efficient aircraft in July• Venue for Regolith Excavation became permanent Lunar Regolith Testbed at NASA

Ames Research Park, in partnership with California Space Authority

Centennial Challenges

Plans for 2010 and Beyond• Next round of Power Beaming and Strong Tether Challenges in 2010• Green Flight Challenge in July, 2011 – eight teams already registered

• Prize ideas solicited from the public and across NASA – about 200 ideas generated

• Will announce several new challenges in 2010 with $5.5M available for prizes • Candidates include:

• Energy storage• Participatory science• Miniature satellites• Low-cost concepts for access to space• Robotics for exploration or space operations

• Will seek to enhance participation and impact with new prizes• Education

• University-level along with open-level competition• K-12 science and engineering activities

• Larger numbers of competitors• Relevance of technologies to national and global needs

Power Beaming

Green Flight

Centennial Challenges2009 WINNERS

Facilitated Access to the Space Environment for Technology Development and TrainingFAST

• Helps emerging technologies mature through access to space-environment testing

• Uses commercial space services• Initially, zero and reduced-gravity parabolic flight services• Later, suborbital and orbital flights when available

• Open to all companies, universities and government labs• NASA pays for flight time, participant pays for their own project

preparations• In August 2009, 19 projects flown in zero and lunar gravity

• 7 universities, 9 private companies – 5 NASA Labs• Planning another fight week in 2010

Innovation Transfusion

• Tapping into external sources of innovation to benefit NASA

• Working with Offices of Chief Engineer and Human Capital

• Innovation Ambassadors - Technical training experience for 3 months to a year with an external organization

– One assignment completed at MIT Media Lab

– Assignment underway at National Renewable Energy Lab

– Targeting assignment near NASA Centers for 2010 due to lack of funding

• Innovation Scouts - Workshops with NASA and external organizations focused on specific innovations

Innovative Technology Initiative

• Supporting proof-of-concept projects for technologies that can transform the way NASA performs its missions or enable whole new capabilities

– Funded 20 projects across NASA in 2009, selected from over 230 proposals

– Expanding program for 2010 and beyond – Examples of 2009 Projects

Microwave-Based Emergency Wound Treatment

Johnson Space Center

Mimicking Gecko Foot Surfaces for Lunar Dust Mitigation

Langley Research Center

Administrator Bolden Announces CRuSRSpeech to Nat’l Assoc. of Investment Companies, Oct. 20, 2009*

• NASA must determine efficient and effective ways to leverage the power, and innovation of American industry and the American entrepreneur.

• In the 1920s, the U.S. Post Office became a major customer for airmail, which created the demand that justified the private investment in many airlines.

• NASA is doing something similar right now. We are engaged in a new program — the Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research program — that will buy space transportation services from the emerging reusable spaceflight companies to conduct science research, technology development, with a keen focus on education.”

* http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/395165main_Bolden_NAIC_Speech.pdf

24

Benefits of Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research

• Through a user-focused program, NASA-sponsored researchers, engineers, technologists and educators would be able to conduct hands-on activities in near-space for the first time.

• This new environment provides several technical benefits to NASA.– Reducing the risk for use of new technologies in future missions.– Developing and testing medical procedures.– Access to 3-4 minutes of microgravity for discovery and testing.– Routine recovery of payload.– Frequent flights.

• Provides new options for career development and public engagement.

– Inspiring new careers in aerospace .– Training the workforce of the future.– Creating greater excitement in the space program.

• Providing a competitive edge for the new commercial space industry.

Human Suborbital Provider – Investigator Workshops

• The purpose of these workshops was to bring interested researchers together with suborbital vehicle developers to begin to understand the potential of these vehicles by engaging in small group discussions and exchanging technical information.

Dec. 15, 2008San Francisco, CA

Earth and Space Science focus in conjunction with

American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting

May 3, 2009Los Angeles, CABiomedical and Microgravity focus in conjunction with Aerospace Medical Association Annual Meeting

Research Opportunities*

• Earth System Science• Human Physiology• Biotech• Fundamental Physics• Helioscience• Astrobiology• Materials Science• Observational Science• Technology Demonstrations• Accretion, gene expression, enzyme activity, whole

organism response to µg, atmospheric vertical sampling, fluid mechanics, small body observations, muscle cell culture matrixing (MCCM), personal resistive training devices, alloy multiphase separation, particle agglomeration, basic physics, student programs…

* Some of the areas suggested by the science community through formal and informal interaction, including RFI’s, workshops, invited talks, meetings and conversations.

Licensing

• Ad Astra 200 kW VASIMR prototype plasma rocket engine.

– Technology licensed from NASA.

– First Space Act Agreement in 2005.

• Bigelow Genesis I spacecraft.

– Technology licensed from NASA.

– First Space Act Agreement in 2002.

Open Source Software Development

• New problem tracking software incorporated into latest Shuttle mission.

• The Problem Reporting Analysis and Corrective Action (PRACA) system was created by the Human-Computer Interaction Group at NASA Ames Research Center. – The Ames IPP Office open-sourced the PRACA software in April

2008 using open-source Bugzilla tools. – The updated version – developed for an order of magnitude less

than using traditional methods – is being used by Lockheed Martin and ATK Space Launch Systems.

– The single, universally accessible PRACA package is replacing a set of more than 40 different database systems that had been used over the past 30 years by the many different parts of the shuttle program.

– PRACA systems are being used in the Constellation program and will be implemented program-wide in the Space Shuttle in March 2009.

Commercial Space and NASA

• There are three key themes that underscore some of the changes underway in how NASA is engaging the commercial space community:

– Private sector role as partner rather than contractor.

– Government purchase of services instead of hardware.

– Creating broader opportunities for innovation.

What is Commercial Space?

• No discrete definition, but rather a context for understanding different aspects of what makes something a ‘commercial space’ activity.

Customers

Gov’t is only customer

Gov’t is anchor tenant

Gov’t is one of many customers

Bus

ines

s P

ract

ices

Cost Plus

Shared Risk

Firm Fixed Price

Commercial Satellites –

buying bandwith ‘by the yard’

Summary of NASA Commercial Space Activities

Commercial Space and NASA

• Private sector role as partner rather than contractor.

– We are beginning to see a shift in relationships between the government and the private sector from the traditional roles of customer-contractor to one of partners.

– The Commercial Orbital Transportation (COTS) program is a prime example of this, where NASA is partnering with SpaceX and Orbital Sciences to develop new space transportation capabilities.

– Other examples include licensing NASA technology for development of commercial space habitats and revolutionary propulsion systems, as well as IPP Seed Fund projects where cost-shared technology development among partners advances important technologies of common interest, such as propellant depots and LOX/Methane rockets.

Commercial Space and NASA

• Creating broader opportunities for innovation.

– The third major shift focuses on the creation of broader opportunities for innovation that address NASA’s needs but also those of commercial space and other markets.

– Such opportunities can be found through NASA’s Centennial Challenges competitions that are open to the citizen inventor.

– Commercial parabolic flight services are being used by NASA’s FAST program to mature innovative technologies in reduced gravity, and NASA is partnering with other agencies and the private sector to conduct research on the International Space Station as a National Laboratory.

Commercial Space and NASA• Government purchase of services instead of

hardware.

– The second important change is the transition to a model where the government is buying services from commercial providers rather than paying for development and operation of hardware.

– The biggest example of this – for billions of dollars in launch services with commercial service providers – is the Commercial Resupply Services contracts to provide cargo delivery to the ISS.

– Another example is the Sabatier water production system that is being deployed on the ISS where NASA will pay for services provided rather than for the development of hardware.

– Looking forward, an example is lunar communications needed in the future that could be a commercial service provided to users rather than a NASA-owned system.

Finding Technologies

• IPP is working with the National Technology Transfer Center (NTTC) to develop a series of technology-specific resources for identifying available technology.

• These include relevant SBIR/STTR technology that has been funded by NASA or other agencies including DoD, and other sources of patented technology in the particular area of interest.

• The NTTC has developed several of these CDs for NASA, which IPP is making available to Mission Directorates, program/project staff at the field centers, prime contractors supporting NASA research and development activities, and other interested parties.

IPP Outreach & Publications

http://www.techbriefs.com/

Electronics & ComputersSemiconductors & ICsMechanicsInformation SciencesMaterials SoftwareManufacturing & PrototypingMachinery & AutomationPhysical SciencesBio-Medical Test & Measurement

http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/http://www.sti.nasa.gov/spinoff/searchrecord

http://ipp.nasa.gov/innovation/index.html

Visit us atipp.nasa.gov

NASA @ Home & NASA Cityhttp://www.nasa.gov/city

Interested in partnering?

ARC Lisa Lockyer Lisa.L.Lockyer@nasa.gov (650) 604-0149

DFRC Gregory Poteat Gregory.A.Poteat@nasa.gov (661) 276-3872

GRC Kathy Needham Kathleen.K.Needham@nasa.gov (216) 433-2802

GSFC Nona Cheeks Nona.K.Cheeks@nasa.gov (301) 286-8504

JPL Andrew Gray Gray@jpl.nasa.gov (818) 354-4906

JSC Michele Brekke Michele.A.Brekke@nasa.gov (281) 483-4614

KSC Dave Makufka David.R.Makufka@nasa.gov (321) 867-6227

LaRC Beth Plentovich Elizabeth.B.Plentovich@nasa.gov (757) 864-2857

MSFC Jim Dowdy Jim.Dowdy@nasa.gov (256) 544-7604

SSC Ramona Travis Ramona.E.Travis@nasa.gov (228) 688-1660

Center Name Email Phone

Contact the relevant IPP Center Chief(s):

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

www.nasa.gov