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Spinoff story
Software Optimizes Designs from Spaceships to Wind Turbines
A real-world story of NASA technology finding a life beyond the mission.
About this technology
Overview
Craig Collier created software at Langley Research Center in the late 1980s to optimize designs for a planned hypersonic spaceplane. He later founded Newport News, Virginia-based Collier Research Corporation and continued developing the software, which calculated weights of different vehicle configurations and suggested changes to meet load requirements, as HyperSizer. Several NASA SBIR contracts geared HyperSizer toward developing alternate designs for the Orion spacecraft. Having optimized countless commercial craft, the company recently broke into the wind turbine industry.