Technology Highlights

photograph of MOS instrument
Test Flights Demonstrate New Concept for Ocean Color Retrieval
Earth
Nov 18, 2016
Technology Development: The Multi-Slit Optimized Spectrometer (MOS) prototype instrument is an airborne sensor designed to demonstrate and validate the multislit concept for hyperspectral ocean color retrievals with real-world scenes. The instrument design represents a new option for hyperspectral... Read More
Sounding Rocket Mission Demonstrates New Technology to Measure Magnetic Fields in a Critical Region of the Sun's Atmosphere
Sun
Nov 9, 2016
Technology Development: Remote sensing of magnetic fields requires both precision spectroscopy and precision polarimetry (spectro-polarimetry). NASA led an international team that developed the Chromospheric Lyman-Alpha Spectropolarimeter (CLASP)—the first instrument to achieve the spectro-... Read More
Photo of team standing next to sounding rocket
WFIRST coronagraph: Imaging Giant Exoplanets Around Nearby Stars
Universe
Nov 9, 2016
Technology Development: The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) is the highest-ranked recommendation for a large space mission in the NRC 2010 decadal survey, New Worlds, New Horizons (NWNH) in Astronomy and Astrophysics. The WFIRST coronagraph instrument (CGI) will be the first high-... Read More
coronagraph imaging
Laboratory Technology Helps Unlock the Mysteries of Magnetic Reconnection
Earth’s Space Environment
Aug 25, 2016
Image of magnetic loops (flux ropes) on the sun, captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).
Image of colorful loops shooting out of the sun.
Starshade to Enable First Images of Earth-sized Exoplanets
Exoplanets
Aug 25, 2016
Technology Development: Currently, astronomers can investigate Earth-sized exoplanets using only indirect methods such as detecting the changes in starlight as a planet passes in front of its star. The starshade (also known as an external occulter) is a spacecraft that will enable telescopes in... Read More
Illustration of deployed spacecraft and telescope in space
Measuring Snow to Manage Water Resources
Ice
Aug 24, 2016
Technology Development: The Wideband (8-40 GHz) Instrument for Snow Measurement (WISM) is designed to accurately measure snowpack on the ground from an airborne platform. WISM is comprised of a dual-frequency (X- and Ku-bands) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and a dual-frequency (K- and Ka-bands)... Read More
Photograph of small airplane on tarmac with mountains in the background.