Innovations Highlights

Labs Develop New Bonding Experience

Aerospace scientists have developed a new method for treating the surface of composite materials, allowing for more effective adhesive bonding.  More »

Aerospace Scientists Work With Single Layer of Carbon Atoms

A trio of Aerospace scientists has developed highly successful methods for growing graphene, characterizing it, and applying it toward reducing the weight of space batteries.  More »

Aerospace Instruments Onboard Radiation Belt Storm Probes

Aerospace-developed instruments will play a central role in the two-year NASA mission to study the Van Allen radiation belts around Earth. Called the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) mission, the space segment consists of two identical spacecraft, launched by an Atlas 401 rocket from Cape Canaveral on Aug. 30. Each spacecraft carries the same complement [...]  More »

Invention Allows Shorter Rocket Engine Bursts

Aerospace senior scientist Brian Brady has received a U.S. patent on a device that allows rocket engines to provide smaller pulses of thrust and to use more kinds of fuels. The patent, No. 7,958,719 B2, is titled “Noncircular Transient Fluid Fuel Injector Control Channels.” According to Brady, rocket engines are designed to operate within a [...]  More »

Aerospace Technique for Micro-machining Glass Enables Medical Advances

In the mid-1990s, when Dr. Henry Helvajian and his colleagues began experimenting with a photosensitive ceramic-glass compound, they had no idea that it would be the jumping off point for a technology that helps save the lives of patients with terminal diseases. A process developed at Aerospace for space applications found its way into medicine. [...]  More »

REBR Probes the Mystery of Reentry Forces

Thousands of man-made objects currently circle the Earth, ranging in size from small flecks of paint to bus-sized satellites. At some point, all will reenter Earth’s atmosphere as their orbits decay. The majority of them will be destroyed due to aerodynamic heating. However, some are large enough or constructed of materials strong enough to survive [...]  More »

In-situ: Fixing Only What Needs to Be Fixed

The launching and operating of space-based assets is considered a “one strike and you’re out” endeavor. Should a problem occur during on-orbit operations, repair is usually so prohibitive in terms of cost, time, and complexity that it is easiest to write off the asset and either replace it or abandon the capability. An anomaly occurring [...]  More »