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Spinoff story
Tools Lighten Designs, Maintain Structural Integrity
A real-world story of NASA technology finding a life beyond the mission.
About this technology
Overview
Collier Research Corporation, of Hampton, Virginia, licensed software developed at Langley Research Center to reduce design weight through the use of composite materials. The first license of NASA-developed software, it has now been used in everything from designing next-generation cargo containers, to airframes, rocket engines, ship hulls, and train bodies. The company now has sales of the NASA-derived software topping $4 million a year and has recently received several Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts to apply its software to nearly all aspects of the new Orion crew capsule design.