1. Meeting NASA’s Technology Challenges Through
Innovation and Collaboration
Andrew Petro/Doug Comstock
Director, Innovative Partnerships Program – NASA Headquarters
NASA Project Management Challenge 2010
Galveston, Texas
Used with permission February 9, 2010

2. Innovative Partnerships Program
Matching Technology Needs with Technology Capabilities

3. Innovative Partnerships Program Elements
Technology Innovation Partnership
Infusion Incubator Development
• Small Business • Centennial • Intellectual
Innovation Challenges Property
Research (SBIR) • FAST/CRuSR Management
• Small Business • Innovation • Technology
Technology Transfusion Transfer
Transfer • Innovative
Research (STTR) Technology • New
Innovative
• New Business
• IPP Seed Fund Partnerships
Models

4. 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

5. NASA Mission Directorates
Exploration Systems Space Operations
Space
Space Shuttle
Productivity Safety Communications
Space
ISS
Cost Transportation
Science Aeronautics Research
Planetary Fundamental
Earth Science Science Aviation Safety
Aeronautics
Heliophysics Astrophysics
Airspace Aeronautics
Management
Systems Test
& Policy

6. Technology In Extreme Environments
• Launch $
performance • Aeronautics Applications
High
weight • Human Habitats
Meteorite
Impact Multifunctional
&
Dust Intelligence
Resistance
• Highly electrostatic • Scientific Productivity
• Ultrafine • Human “Amplifiers”
• Human Habitats • IVHM
Extreme Ultra-sensitive
Radiation Signal capture
Resistance
• Mission to Europa: • Voyager:
1-5 Mrads • Lunar Surface: Signal From 9.3 x 109 mi
Extreme
-233 °C to 123 °C
Temperature
Resistance • Mars Surface:
-87 °C to -5 °C

7. IPP Technology for Mission Directorates
Technology Needs
• Communication
Innovative Mission Directorates
Partnerships Program • Programs
• SBIR/STTR • Projects
• Centennial Challenges Technology Infusion
• Seed Fund • Bridging the “Valley
• Partnerships of Death”
• Narrow the gap and
reduce risk
Executed at the Field Executed at the Field
• Begin building
Centers Centers
bridges early

8. Space Shuttle and ISS Mars Exploration Rovers
Mars Phoenix Lander Stardust and Orion
SBIR Technology Infusion Examples

9. “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

10. “Dust to Thrust” ISRU Tech Demo
Water collected from the Tephra.
Tephra during melt.
Tephra ‘puck’ after melting. Lox/Methane thruster firing.

11. Technologies and Firms are Searchable
https://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/sbir/search/fundedTechSearch.jsp

12. Hallmarks of Success
NASA “Hallmarks of Success”
video stories highlighting some of NASA’s premier
Infusion 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

13. IPP Seed Fund
Leveraging
3 years of projects
$19M in IPP Seed Funding
$53.8 M in non-IPP funds
Advancement of Technology Readiness Level

14. IPP Seed Fund Demographics
Broad array of partners
94 partners
35 states and Canada

15. 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.

16. Lunar Analog Field Demonstrations Of
In-Situ Resource Utilization & Human Robotic Systems
Pilot / Bucketdrum ROxygen / Cratos
RESOLVE / Scarab Rover
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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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 Green Flight
• 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
Power Beaming
• 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

20. Centennial Challenges
2009 WINNERS

21. Facilitated Access to the Space Environment
FAST for Technology Development and Training
• 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

22. 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

23. 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 Mimicking Gecko Foot Surfaces for
Wound Treatment Lunar Dust Mitigation
Johnson Space Center Langley Research Center

24. Administrator Bolden Announces CRuSR
Speech 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

25. 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.

26. 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, 2008
San Francisco, CA
Earth and Space Science
focus in conjunction with
American Geophysical
Union Fall Meeting
May 3, 2009
Los Angeles, CA
Biomedical and Microgravity
focus in conjunction with
Aerospace Medical
Association Annual Meeting

27. 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.

28. 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.

29. 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.

30. 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.

31. What is Commercial Space?
• No discrete definition, but rather a context for understanding
different aspects of what makes something a ‘commercial
space’ activity.
Commercial
Firm
Satellites –
Fixed
Business Practices
buying bandwith
Price
‘by the yard’
Shared
Risk
Cost
Plus
Gov’t is only Gov’t is anchor Gov’t is one of
customer tenant many customers
Customers

32. Summary of NASA Commercial Space Activities

33. 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.

34. 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.

35. 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.

36. 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.

37. IPP Outreach & Publications
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/spinoff/
http://www.techbriefs.com/ searchrecord
Electronics & Computers http://ipp.nasa.gov/innovation/
Semiconductors & ICs index.html
Mechanics
Information Sciences
Materials Software
Manufacturing & Prototyping
Machinery & Automation
Visit us at
Physical Sciences
Bio-Medical Test & Measurement ipp.nasa.gov
NASA @ Home & NASA City
http://www.nasa.gov/city

38. Interested in partnering?
Contact the relevant IPP Center Chief(s):
Center Name Email Phone
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

39. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
www.nasa.gov