|
NASA Technology Awards/Incentives
+ Awards won
+ Nomination information
IPP Office Technology Awards
+ Awards won
+ Nomination information
GSFC Awards
+ Awards won
+ Nomination information
External Technology Awards
- Awards won
+ Nomination information
If you would like additional information, nomination procedures, or to nominate a team or individual for awards listed on this site, please contact:
Innovative Partnerships Program Office
Code 504
phone: (301) 286-5810
email: Innovative Partnerships Program Office
NOTE: Some downloadable forms require Acrobat Reader software. Download free copy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dr. Murzy D. Jhabvala with former Center Director Al Diaz after being inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame.
|
+ Discover Award
+ Electrotechnology Transfer Award
+ Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer
+ Government Technology Leadership Awards
+ Harry Diamond Memorial Award
+ Innovations in American Government Award
+ R&D 100 Awards
+ The Service to America Medals
+ U.S Space Foundation Space Technology Hall of Fame
+ The Tech Museum of Innovations Award
Discover Award
Recognizes those individuals and organizations who have made a significant impact on the world through technology.
1997
- (Finalist)—Dr. Bruce Woodgate—Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS): STIS allowed scientists to see deeper into space than ever before. STIS searches for and studies black holes, identifies how stars and planets form, and explores distant galaxies formed early in the life of the universe. The multinode microchannel array can be used to detect shorts in high horsepower electric motor windings during manufacture.
+ Nomination information
Electrotechnology Transfer Award
Honors individuals whose contributions in key government or civilian roles have led to effective application and/or transfer of federal or state sponsored developments in advanced electrical, electronic, and computer technologies to successful commercial sector opportunities.
+ Nomination information
Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer
Recognizes laboratory employees who have accomplished outstanding work in the process of transferring a technology developed by a federal laboratory.
2008
- Mid-Atlantic FLC Partnership Award Winner: Technology Transfer Manager Ted Mecum (Code 504) was a recipient of a 2008 Partnership Award. The award recognizes Mecum for his innovative strategy to increase use of and knowledge about GSFC’s SpaceWire Link & Switch (“router”) technology throughout the international aerospace industry.
2007
- Honorable Mention: Mid-Atlantic FLC Excellence in Technology Transfer Award Winners: Glenn Rakow (Code 561)—SpaceWire: This SpaceWire link-and-switch implementation provides for a standard that enables high- and low-rate communication between avionics over a network architecture. This significant advancement helps reduce the complexity of communication over satellite architecture applications and other space-flight systems while improving speed and reliability.
2006
- Mid-Atlantic FLC Excellence in Technology Transfer Award Winners: The late James Kerley, Wayne Eklund (Sigma Space Corp.), Allen Crane (Swales), and Darryl Mitchell (Code 504)—Cable compliant joint (CCJ) and compliant walker technologies: The CCJ facilitates coupling operations, provides customized structural response, and mitigates shock and vibration damage. The inventors integrated the CCJ into a walker featuring a harness that holds a patient upright and mimics the movement of the hip joint. Under the leadership of OTT’s Darryl Mitchell, these technologies were licensed to Enduro Medical Technology, which now manufactures and distributes the Secure Ambulation Module (SAM) and related products. SAM’s latest success has been at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where the walker is used during physical therapy for our nation’s soldiers.
- Mid-Atlantic FLC Excellence in Technology Transfer Award Winners: Dr. Norden Huang (formerly Code 614), Karin Blank (Code 586), Tom Flatley (Code 586), Semion Kizhner (Code 564), Joe Famiglietti (formerly with IPP), Keith Dixon (Code 140), and Laura Schoppe (Fuentek)—HHT technology: These individuals collaborated to make HHT and the software program that implements the algorithms available to Harvard University’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) via an agreement developed by IPP. With this technology and the expertise of the GSFC innovators, BIDMC researchers have worked to enhance monitoring of patients at risk for sudden cardiac failure and stroke as well as monitor diagnosis and treatment of depression and other neurological disorders.
2005
- (Mid-Atlantic FLC) Dr. James D. Spinhirne (MPL), Dr. Ellsworth J. Welton, V. Stanley Scott III, James R. Campbell, Timothy A. Berkoff, Luis A. Ramos-Izquierdo, Dennis L. Hlavka, Sandra C. Valencia, Daniel Hopf, Brent N. Holben, and Dr. Si-Chee Tsay—Micro Pulse Lidar (MPLNET): The Micro Pulse Lidar device provides autonomous ground-based monitoring of clouds and aerosols-dust, soot, sulfate, sea salt and other particles caused by natural and human activities—in Earth's atmosphere. Using diode-pumped lasers with very low pulse energies and very high pulse repetition rates, MPL revolutionized the profiling of atmospheric cloud and aerosol vertical structure. The MPLNET Project was formally established in 2000 to organize, support, and coordinate the data being gathered by various MPL devices placed around the globe (some by NASA and some by other U.S. and foreign groups).
2004
- (Mid-Atlantic FLC) Dr. James C. Tilton—Hierarchical Segmentation (HSEG) software technology: The HSEG technology provides a new approach to image analysis, focusing on image regions—and how they change depending on how fine the resolution is—rather than just pixels.
- (Mid-Atlantic FLC) Russell Carpenter (and colleagues)—GPS-Enhanced Onboard Navigation System: This technology is a flight software package that provides onboard orbit determination and control in real time, with higher accuracy, and without human intervention while working within limited computing resources.
2001
- Dr. Norden E. Huang—Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT): HHT allows users to conduct more precise analysis of signal data than can be obtained from conventional Fourier-based methods. Designed specifically for processing nonlinear and nonstationary signals, HHT also can be used to analyze linear and stationary signals.
2000
- (Honorable Mention) Geary Schwemmer—Conically Scanned Holographic Telescope: This technology advances the state of the art in optical remote sensing and opens the door to creative uses of holographic optics in laser optical and passive spectrally dispersive systems. As a replacement for conventional reflective (or refractive) telescope and scan mirror combinations, this holographic system reduces the size, weight, and cost of telescopes by a factor of 2 or more while increasing reliability.
- (Honorable Mention) Peter Rossoni and Wayne Eklund—Four Degree-of-Freedom Compliant Hinge: This technology was designed to connect marine semisubmersible platforms from an offshore airport. The design employs compliant mechanism concepts in a high-strength, robust hinge-type interface that accommodate large external forces induced by rough sea conditions. The hinge can accommodate and redistribute forces in excess of 1 million pounds, extend product life more than 100 times, save millions of dollars, and provide fine angular displacement control.
1998
- Frank Cepollina—Honored for his efforts assisting the transfer of technologies from the Hubble Space Telescope Flight Systems and Servicing Project to the medical, semiconductor, tool, electric utility, and oil drilling industries.
- John Vranish—3-D Sprag: Honored for his efforts assisting ransfer of this three-dimensional sprag technology to household tools, pull starters on gasoline motors, automatic transmissions, and other applications in which a cog must only move in one direction.
1994
- Martha R. Szcuzur—Transportable Applications Environment (TAE)
+ Nomination information
Government Technology Leadership Awards
Recognizes projects-large or small-that have directly aided in the missions of their organizations by boosting efficiency and effectiveness, lowering costs, and/or improving service to the public, through original uses of technology.
1999
- Airborne Lidar Topographic Mapping System (ALTMS): Certified by the Federal Aviation Administration, ALTMS provides rapid, efficient, and accurate three-dimensional virtual digital mapping of more of the land’s surface than ever seen before. Operating at altitudes up to 20,000 feet, the system uses a pulsed laser to acquire data with an absolute vertical accuracy of approximately 1 foot. Unlike traditional methods, ALTMS can map an area under various lighting, vegetation, and weather conditions, in days instead of months, and at one-tenth the cost.
- Hilbert-Huang Transform: Traditional energy-frequency analyses are based on the Fourier transformation, which provides accurate results only for linear and stationary signals. Hilbert-Huang transform algorithms were designed for the analysis of nonlinear, nonstationary data. The technology can be executed on any PC or workstation and provides more precise analysis of signals than with previously used methods. Applications for this innovation are numerous. It allows scientists to accurately process and study data on everything from ocean waves to earthquakes and from the structural soundness of the nation’s bridges to heart arrhythmia.
- (Finalist) Regional Applications Center Program: Designed to foster the use of environmental and Earth resource data from satellites and other sources, the Regional Applications Center program allows participating institutions to directly receive, manipulate, and customize localized satellite data effectively, inexpensively, and on a routine basis to meet regional needs.
1998
- Cooperative Satellite Learning Project (CSLP): By involving elementary and high school students in NASA scientific satellite missions, CSLP motivates children to pursue careers in science, engineering, mathematics, and other technical areas. Students who participated in this program controlled a satellite's orbital operations and designed an experiment for a space shuttle mission.
+ Nomination information
Harry Diamond Memorial Award
Recognizes distinguished technical contributions in the field of electrotechnology while in U.S. government service. It was established in 1949 in memory of Mr. Harry Diamond, whose professional life exemplified the highest type of engineering and scientific development effort in federal service.
+ Nomination information
Innovations in American Government Award
Recognizes creative governmental initiatives that are especially effective in addressing vital public needs by honoring programs that involve a fresh approach to a problem of significant concern to a portion of the U.S. public.
+ Nomination information
R&D 100 Awards
Recognizes the 100 most technologically significant new products of the year and their inventors.
2008
- Pat Cappelaere (Vightel Corporation), Stu Frye (Code 428), and Dan Mandl (Code 581): Sensor Web 2.0: Won a spot as one of the top 100 most unique, innovative, and noteworthy technologies for 2008. A Web services–based software, Sensor Web 2.0 gathers and assimilates data from a network of sensors—seismic and GPS ground sensors, fire tower sensors, weather radar devices, and satellite sensors—enabling them to operate as a cohesive whole. By employing Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) technology and taking advantage of emerging “mashup” capabilities, Sensor Web 2.0 enables users to set up sensor webs through point-and-click interfaces. Because the sensor integration path is not tied to a particular system, it strengthens the U.S. contribution to the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS)*—a collaborative effort of about 60 countries to form a network of Earth-observing systems. The result is a complete, real-time picture of Earth via shared global resources.
+ Read news story
2007
- Jeffrey Hosler (Code 588), Troy Ames (Code 588), and John Moisan (Code 614): Adaptive Sensor Fleet: Won a spot as one of the top 100 most unique, innovative, and noteworthy technologies for 2007. The revolutionary ASF software has already made significant inroads into oceanographic and simulated planetary research—and its breadth of capabilities has the potential to benefit science missions ranging from oil-spill detection to search-and-rescue operations. Its architecture employs a unique, simple interface to remotely control vehicles (such as boats, satellites, rovers, robots, etc.) to work collaboratively in support of a scientific goal. Offering centralized communication, the system can control the fleet of vehicles and reroute them as needed without the vehicles “talking” to each other. The system offers extreme versatility in the variety of science goals it can accomplish, and offers cost savings and efficiency by enabling reusable code and commands.
+ Read news story
2006
- John Vranish (Code 544): Conformal Robotic Gripper: Won a spot as one of the top 100 most unique, innovative, and noteworthy technologies for 2006. The technology is a unique gripping mechanism that has the potential to revolutionize robotics by eliminating the need for specialized end effectors and grippers. End effectors are typically designed for very specific tasks and therefore tend to be limited in the range of objects they can accommodate. The gripper’s innovative design uses arrays of pins that gently conform to any object’s shape then lock into position for an extremely secure, yet gentle hold—even against significant external force or torque. This enables the conformal gripper to grasp and manipulate objects of varying size and shape, securely holding an object’s position for repair, machining, or assembly.
+ Read news story
2001
- Dr. Norden E. Huang: Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT): HHT allows users to conduct more precise analysis of signal data than can be obtained from conventional Fourier-based methods. Designed specifically for processing nonlinear and nonstationary signals, HHT also can be used to analyze linear and stationary signals.
1997
- John Vranish: Three-Dimensional Roller-locking Sprag: A cam lock that eliminates some of the slippage and lubrication problems associated with 2D sprags. The 3-D sprag forces a cog or wheel to move in only one direction. This technology is particularly useful for tools such as wrenches for space and commerical use, pull starters in gasoline motors, automatic transmissions, and some household tools.
+ Nomination information
The Service to America Medals
The Partnership for Public Service bestows its Service to America Medals to recognize the accomplishments of America's public servants. The awards pay tribute to America’s dedicated federal workforce, highlighting those who have made significant contributions to our country. Honorees are chosen based on their commitment and innovation as well as the impact of their work on addressing the needs of the nation.
2006
- Dr. Norden E. Huang (Code 614.2)—Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT): Won in the Science and Environment category. HHT allows users to conduct more precise analysis of signal data than can be obtained from conventional Fourier-based methods. Designed specifically for processing nonlinear and nonstationary signals, HHT also can be used to analyze linear and stationary signals.
+ Read news story
+ Nomination information (link opens new browser window)
U.S Space Foundation Space Technology Hall of Fame
Honors the innovators who have significantly impacted American industry and society through the technology originally developed for space use into commercial products.
2001
- Dr. Murzy D. Jhabvala—Quantum Well Infrared Photodetectors (QWIP): A complicated solid-state detector that sandwiches gallium-arsenide chips between silicon wafers and connects them with indium connectors. These photodetectors are superior to any existing technology because they can operate at longer infrared wavelenghts and can be produced at lower costs.
1997
- Charge-coupled Device (CCD): Used in the Hubble Space Telescope's imaging spectograph. The CCD's superior imaging characteristics enable it to be used to locate potentially cancerous breast tissue. This allows suspicious tissue to be removed via needle biopsy rather than through surgery.
+ Nomination information
The Tech Museum of Innovations Award
Technology Benefiting Humanity is a unique new awards program designed to recognize people, companies or organizations, which develop or use technology in creative ways to solve global challenges and have a high potential of yielding lasting, beneficial impact. The awards honor innovators from around the world in the categories of health, education, environment, economic development, and equality.
2003
- (Laureate)—James D. Spinhirne—Micro Pulse Lidar (MPL): MPL is a ground-based lidar system that enables autonomous monitoring of atmospheric clouds and aerosol scattering. Unlike previous lidar systems, MPL is an eye-safe, small, simple, reliable, long-range system that operates unattended and is significantly enhancing atmospheric research.
+ Nomination information
|
|
