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To receive email updates about stories like these, fresh from the Office of the Chief Technologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, email karl.b.hille@nasa.gov.

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Latest Goddard Innovations

NASA Goddard Lidar Team Receives Center Innovation Award for Advancements
2 min read

NASA researchers Guan Yang, Jeff Chen, and their team received the 2024 Innovator of The Year Award at the agency’s…

Reinventing the Clock: NASA’s New Tech for Space Timekeeping
5 min read

Here on Earth, it might not matter if your wristwatch runs a few seconds slow. But crucial spacecraft functions need…

NASA Completes Spacecraft to Transport, Support Roman Space Telescope
5 min read

The spacecraft bus that will deliver NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to its orbit and enable it to function…

NASA Optical Navigation Tech Could Streamline Planetary Exploration
5 min read

In a dim, barren landscape like the surface of the Moon, it can be easy to get lost. With few…

NASA Trains Machine Learning Algorithm for Mars Sample Analysis
6 min read

When a robotic rover lands on another world, scientists have a limited amount of time to collect data from the…

Augmented Reality Speeds Spacecraft Construction at NASA Goddard
5 min read

Technicians armed with advanced measuring equipment, augmented reality headsets, and QR codes virtually checked the fit of some Roman Space…

NASA’s Compact Infrared Cameras Enable New Science
5 min read

A new, higher-resolution infrared camera outfitted with a variety of lightweight filters could probe sunlight reflected off Earth’s upper atmosphere…

Big Science Drives Wallops’ Upgrades for NASA Suborbital Missions
4 min read

Large amounts of data collected by today’s sensitive science instruments present a data-handling challenge to small rocket and balloon mission…

NASA, Industry Improve Lidars for Exploration, Science
5 min read

NASA engineers will test a suite of new laser technologies from an aircraft this summer for Earth science remote sensing.…

NASA Engineers Push Limits of Physics to Focus Light
3 min read

Photon sieves focus extreme ultraviolet light and can enable Sun science.

NASA Improves GIANT Optical Navigation Technology for Future Missions
4 min read

Goddard's GIANT optical navigation software helped guide the OSIRIS-REx mission to the Asteroid Bennu. Today its developers continue to add…

Goddard Engineers Improve NASA Lidar Tech for Exploration
4 min read

Cutting edge innovations by NASA researchers seek to refine lidars into smaller, lighter, more versatile tools for exploration.

NASA Tech Lets Scientists See Snow-Water Through the Trees
5 min read

NASA scientists are testing a technology that from orbit could more accurately measure water stored in snow.

Goddard, Wallops Engineers Test Printed Electronics in Space
4 min read

Printing electronic circuits on the walls and structures of spacecraft could help future missions do more in smaller packages.

NASA’s New Detectors Could Improve Views of Gamma-Ray Events
5 min read

NASA scientists are developing upgraded gamma-ray sensors to reveal more details about black hole outbursts and exploding stars.

NASA To Measure Forest Health from Above
4 min read

Using hyperspectral and shortwave IR cameras, aircraft and satellites could analyze forest health through the light they give off

NASA Gathering Tools to Assess Damage, Verify Parts Made in Space
5 min read

using tools to assess damage like micrometeorite impacts in lunar samples hold keys to safer habitats and protective gear for…

NASA Turns to AI to Design Mission Hardware
4 min read

Hardware designed by AI may resemble alien bones, but they weigh less, tolerate more stress, and require a fraction of…

NASA Developing AI to Steer Using Landmarks – On the Moon
3 min read

A NASA engineer is teaching an AI machine to use features on the Moon’s horizon to navigate across the lunar…

NASA Researcher’s AI ‘Eye’ Could Help Robotic Data-Gathering
3 min read

When it comes to making real-time decisions about unfamiliar data – say, choosing a path to hike up a mountain…

NASA Sounding Rockets Launch Multiple Science Payloads
4 min read

Newly proven technology developed at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility near Chincoteague, Virginia, turns a single sounding rocket into a hive…

NASA Engineer’s Quantum Dot Instrument Enables Spacecraft-as-Sensor Concept
4 min read

New technology could coat the “skin” of a satellite with quantum dots, turning its entire surface into a sensor that…

NASA Engineer Develops Tiny, High-Powered Laser to Find Water on the Moon
5 min read

Finding water on the Moon could be easier with a Goddard technology that uses an effect called quantum tunneling to…

NASA Develops Technology to Dissect the Lower Atmosphere
5 min read

The part of the atmosphere closest to the planet is the hardest to measure from space due to the volume…

NASA Scientist Looks to AI, Lensing to Find Masses of Free-Floating Planets   
5 min read

Relatively few alien worlds have been detected floating freely through the galaxy as rogue planets. Many astronomers believe that these…

NASA Provides Laser for LISA Mission
5 min read

Goddard engineers delivered the first prototype laser for the European Space Agency-led Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, or LISA, mission. This…

Small Satellite, Big Questions: CuPID CubeSat Will Get New Perspective on Sun-Earth Boundary
6 min read

The Cusp Plasma Imaging Detector, or CuPID, will orbit about 340 miles above Earth to will image the boundary where…