Back to the catalog
Spinoff story
Orbital Trajectory Analyzer Takes Mission Planning to New Heights
A real-world story of NASA technology finding a life beyond the mission.
About this technology
Overview
A team of engineers at Goddard Space Flight Center created the General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT), specializing in trajectory optimization to design better flight plans for their spacecraft. Publicly released in 2013 as open source software, GMAT has been embraced by users around the world, with defense contractors like Columbia, Maryland-based Applied Defense Solutions Inc. making use of it. A number of universities also use the software as an educational tool.