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Spinoff story
New Energy Source Powers Subsea Robots Indefinitely
A real-world story of NASA technology finding a life beyond the mission.
About this technology
Overview
A former NASA engineer licensed technology he had developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to power sensors on the marine floats that calibrated NASA’s Aquarius satellite instrument, which mapped ocean salinity. Seatrec Inc. of Vista, California, now produces modules that generate energy when material inside them turns from solid to liquid as they rise from cold depths to warmer surface waters.