Technology Highlights

Astrophysics
Astrophysics Division
Science-enabling Technology
Technology Highlights
A unique new material that shrinks when it is heated and expands when it is cooled could help enable the ultra-stable space telescopes that future NASA missions require to search for habitable worlds. One of the goals of NASA’s Astrophysics Division is to determine whether we are alone in the universe. NASA’s astrophysics missions seek […]
Posted July 1, 2025
Heliophysics
Science Mission Directorate
Science-enabling Technology
Technology Highlights
A NASA-sponsored team is creating a new approach to measure magnetic fields by developing a new system that can both take scientific measurements and provide spacecraft attitude control functions.
Posted June 17, 2025
Earth Science Division
Earth Science Technology Office
Science-enabling Technology
Technology Highlights
Two NASA-developed technologies are key components of a new high-resolution sensor for observing wildfires: High Operating Temperature Barrier Infrared Detector (HOT-BIRD), developed with support from NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), and a cutting-edge Digital Readout Integrated Circuit (DROIC), developed with funding from NASA’s Smal
Posted June 3, 2025
Biological & Physical Sciences
International Space Station (ISS)
Science-enabling Technology
Technology Highlights
NASA is demonstrating new microgravity fluids technologies to enable advanced “no-moving-parts” plant-watering methods aboard spacecraft. Crop production in microgravity will be important to provide whole food nutrition, dietary variety, and psychological benefits to astronauts exploring deep space.
Posted May 20, 2025
Biological & Physical Sciences
Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL)
GRACE-FO (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-on)
Science-enabling Technology
Technology Highlights
Future space missions could use quantum technologies to help us understand the physical laws that govern the universe, explore the composition of other planets and their moons, gain insights into unexplained cosmological phenomena, or monitor ice sheet thickness and the amount of water in underground aquafers on Earth.
Posted May 6, 2025
Earth Science
Earth Science Division
Science-enabling Technology
Technology Highlights
NASA sponsored Entrepreneurs Challenge events in 2020, 2021, and 2023 to invite small business start-ups to showcase innovative ideas and technologies with the potential to advance the agency’s science goals.
Posted April 22, 2025
Astrophysics
Astrophysics Division
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Science-enabling Technology
Technology Highlights
Astrophysics observations at ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths often probe the most dynamic aspects of the universe. However, the high energy of ultraviolet photons means that their interaction with the materials that make up an observing instrument are less efficient, resulting in low overall throughput.
Posted March 18, 2025
Astrophysics
Astrophysics Division
Science-enabling Technology
Technology Highlights
One of the ultimate goals in astrophysics is the discovery of Earth-like planets that are capable of hosting life. While thousands of planets have been discovered around other stars, the vast majority of these detections have been made via indirect methods, that is, by detecting the effect of the planet on the star’s light, rather […]
Posted February 18, 2025
Earth Science
Oceanography
Science-enabling Technology
SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography)
Technology Highlights
Rivers and streams wrap around Earth in complex networks millions of miles long, driving trade, nurturing ecosystems, and stocking critical reserves of freshwater. But the hydrologists who dedicate their professional lives to studying this immense web of waterways do so with a relatively limited set of tools.
Posted February 4, 2025
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Science-enabling Technology
Technology Highlights
NASA sponsored Entrepreneurs Challenge events in 2020, 2021, and 2023 to identify innovative ideas and technologies from small business start-ups with the potential to advance the agency’s science goals.
Posted January 7, 2025
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