Driving Technological Innovation

Technology

This model of the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) detector, in green, is similar to the charge-coupled devices in digital cameras. Instrument models undergo extreme temperature and vibration tests, to simulate the harsh space environment.
Credit: NASA JPL CalTech.

Driving Technological Innovation

NASA Science missions are engines of innovation, and NASA invests in technology development in each of its four Science areas: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Planetary Science, and Astrophysics. These technologies enable the advanced space missions of the future and also find myriad applications in the broader economy, particularly in fields such as health care that rely on imaging, data mining and visualization technologies. For example, technologies and techniques developed for Hubble are now used to enhance breast cancer imaging.

Robotic exploration of Earth and the solar system requires the successful implementation of a range of new technologies. NASA's technology priorities include:

• New remote sensing technologies to better see, detect, and measure the Earth, sun, solar system, and universe.
   
• Large, lower cost, lightweight mirrors and space-deployable structures for the next generation of large telescopes and antennas.
   
• Novel platforms, including power and propulsion technologies that can take instruments to new vantage points.
   
• Intelligent distributed systems that enable advanced communications, efficient data processing and transfer, and autonomous operations of land- and space-based assets.
   
• Information synthesis to derive useful knowledge from extremely large data sets through visualization, advanced simulations, analysis, and seamlessly linked models.