FROM SPACE SYSTEMS R&D TO COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS: TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER INITIATIVES TO BENEFIT SMALL SATELLITE MISSIONS
- Paper ID
IAF-97-IAA.11.2.09
- author
- company
NASA
- country
U.S.A.
- year
1997
- abstract
In this paper, the authors share their experiences as pioneers in multi-use and multi-disciplinary technology development and transfer. Their individual technology profiles demonstrate the innovation of evolving from abstract concepts and methods, conceived within a technology-driven culture, to "faster, better, cheaper" products and services available in the international marketplace for purchase by both public and private sector customers. Each technology profiled was originally funded to meet a NASA program-peculiar need. However, none of the technologies were designed to meet that need exclusively, due to the foresight of the government technology investors and the then technology contractors (now entrepreneurs). By pursuing an approach that was uninhibited by institutional boundaries, the authors effected technology transfers that were readily reusable as products, standards, procedures, and services in application domains outside the original R&D scope. This type of technology investment/transfer initiative that produces readily reusable commercial solutions from space systems R&D is called reusable productization. Examples of reusable productization are presented for space program applications and other applications, such as manufacturing, public utilities, and banking. The authors suggest that reusable productization will facilitate bold, yet affordable small satellite missions by freeing mission officials from working on solutions to problems that have already been solved.