The Innovative Partnerships Program (IPP) provides needed technology and capabilities to NASA’s mission directorates, programs, and projects through investments and partnerships with industry, academia, government agencies, and national laboratories.

IPP has offices at each of NASA’s 10 field centers, and elements that include: Technology Infusion, which manages the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs and the IPP Seed Fund; the Innovation Incubator, which includes the Centennial Challenges and new efforts with the emerging commercial space sector; and Partnership Development, which includes intellectual property management and technology transfer. In 2007:

• IPP facilitated the Agency’s entering into over 200 Space Act Agreements with private and other external entities for development of dual-use technology targeted to mission directorate technology needs.
  
  
• IPP provided $9.2 million in funding for 38 Seed Fund partnerships for development of a broad spectrum of technologies addressing specific mission directorate technology gaps. Partner and field center contributions of cash and in-kind resources will leverage these funds by a factor of four.
• IPP facilitated the signing of 35 license agreements and 598 Software Use Agreements.
  
  
• IPP facilitated the reporting of more than 1,200 new invention disclosures. As a result of IPP’s efforts, over 100 NASA patent applications were filed and 93 patents awarded in FY 2007. Revenues realized from licenses of NASA-sponsored technologies exceeded $4 million in FY 2007.
  
  
• IPP completed six Centennial Challenge events and awarded $450,000 in combined prize money at two of them.

To complement the specialized centers and programs sponsored by the IPP, affiliated organizations and services have been formed to strengthen NASA’s commitment to U.S. businesses and build upon NASA’s experience in technology transfer.

Technology Infusion

Much of what we gain from our space exploration is in the scientific and technological progress that comes from the process of doing it. Many of those technologies are the direct result of NASA-supported funding for both internal research and development (R&D) projects performed at NASA centers and external research from the small business community. As a result of these expanding needs for new capabilities to explore space, NASA missions often result in technologies which have applications beyond aerospace. These technologies, while targeted for integration into the mainstream NASA flight programs, can also be commercialized, creating new marketplace products and improving the quality of life for the American public right here on Earth.

For NASA, technology infusion is the process of strategically binding technical needs and potential solutions. These innovative solutions, be they hardware or software; enhancing or enabling; near-term or far-term; low technology readiness level (TRL) or high TRL; NASA internally or externally developed; must all be managed through some aspect of transition from their originating source to the targeted challenges within NASA’s programs and projects.

The IPP Technology Infusion element includes the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)/Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs and the IPP Seed Fund programs. Together, these programs provide pathways from these originating sources to IPP’s technology portfolio and provide enabling infrastructures that enhance the infusion of these technologies in NASA missions and programs. These programs allow the Agency to implement successful technology infusion and receive benefits in the following ways:

• Leverage limited program funds for technology development
  
  
• Leverage partners’ funds/investments to achieve NASA’s R&D goals
  
  
• Avoid additional program costs by providing a portfolio of technology solutions
  
  
• Accelerate technology maturation through concurrent R&D
  
  
• Make informed decisions when selecting technologies for programs/projects/missions (i.e., better trade space information)
  
  
• Increase the return on its R&D investment with additional marketplace applications of technologies (benefits for both NASA and the public)

SBIR projects often result in commercial products that benefit not only NASA, but also the economy, like this lightweight and flexible thin film solar cell battery charger that came out of work done at Glenn Research Center by PowerFilm Inc.

NASA issues annual program solicitations that set forth a substantial number of research topics and subtopic areas consistent with stated Agency needs or missions. Both the list of topics and the description of the topics and subtopics are sufficiently comprehensive to provide a wide range of opportunity for small business concerns to participate in NASA research or R&D programs. Topics and subtopics emphasize the need for proposals with advanced concepts to meet specific Agency research needs.

The NASA SBIR program <http://www.sbir.nasa.gov> provides seed money to small U.S. businesses to develop innovative concepts that meet NASA mission requirements. Each year, NASA invites small businesses to offer proposals in response to technical topics listed in the annual SBIR-STTR Program Solicitations. The NASA field centers negotiate and award the contracts, and then monitor the work.

NASA’s SBIR program is implemented in three phases:

• Phase I is the opportunity to establish the feasibility and technical merit of a proposed innovation. Selected competitively, NASA Phase I contracts last 6 months and must remain under specific monetary limits.
  
  
• Phase II is the major research and development effort which continues the most promising of the Phase I projects based on scientific and technical merit, results of Phase I, expected value to NASA, company capability, and commercial potential. Phase II places greater emphasis on the commercial value of the innovation. The contracts are usually in effect for a period of 24 months and again must not exceed specified monetary limits.
  
  
• Phase III is the process of completing the development of a product to make it commercially available. While the financial resources needed must be obtained from sources other than the funding set aside for the SBIR, NASA may fund Phase III activities for follow-on development or for production of an innovation for its own use.

Small businesses develop technologies in response to specific NASA mission-driven needs, as presented in the NASA SBIR-STTR Program Solicitations.

The NASA STTR program <http://www.sbir.nasa.gov> differs from the SBIR program in that the funding and technical scope is limited and participants must be teams of small businesses and research institutions that will conduct joint research.

SBIR/STTR Hallmarks of Success Videos are short videos about successful companies that have participated in the SBIR and STTR programs. Available online at <http://sbir.nasa.gov/SBIR/successvideo.html>, many of these videos also feature products that have been featured in the pages of Spinoff.

As another area of emphasis for technology infusion, the IPP established the Seed Fund with the following objectives that:

• Support NASA mission directorate program/project technology needs
  
  
• Provide “bridge” funding to centers in support of mission directorate programs
  
  
• Promote partnerships and cost sharing with mission directorate programs and industry
  
  
• Leverage resources with greater return on investment
  
  

Innovation Incubator

The IPP Innovation Incubator currently includes three distinct elements: Centennial Challenges, the FAST program, and Innovation Transfusion.

This year, researchers at Glenn Research Center were awarded their 100th “R&D 100” award, a designation from R&D Magazine that the Center has developed products that rank among the top 100 most technologically significant products of the year.

Centennial Challenges <http://centennialchallenges.nasa.gov> is NASA’s program of prize contests to stimulate innovation and competition in solar system exploration and ongoing NASA mission areas. By making awards based on actual achievements, instead of proposals, Centennial Challenges seeks novel solutions to NASA’s mission challenges from non-traditional sources of innovation in academia, industry, and the public. Challenges include:

• The Beam Power Challenge, which is designed to promote the development of new power distribution technologies. This initiative is managed by The Spaceward Foundation.
  
  
• The Tether Challenge, also managed by The Spaceward Foundation, whose purpose is to develop very strong tether material for use in various structural applications.
  
  
• The Lunar Lander Challenge, designed to accelerate technology developments supporting the commercial creation of a vehicle capable of ferrying cargo or humans back and forth between lunar orbit and the lunar surface. This project is run in conjunction with the X Prize Foundation.
  
  
• The Astronaut Glove Challenge, whose aim is to promote the development of glove joint technology, resulting in a highly dexterous and flexible glove that can be used by astronauts over long periods of time for space or planetary surface excursions. Volanz Aerospace Inc./Spaceflight America manages this program for NASA.
  
  
• The Regolith Excavation Challenge promotes the development of new technologies to excavate lunar regolith, which is a necessary first step toward lunar resource utilization. Sponsorship for this challenge is courtesy of the California Space Education and Workforce Institute (CSEWI).
  
  
• The General Aviation Technology Challenge is intended to bring about the development of new aviation technologies, which can improve the community acceptance, efficiency, door-to-door speed, and safety of future air vehicles. For this challenge, NASA has partnered with the Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency (CAFE) Foundation.
  
  
• The Moon Regolith Oxygen (MoonROx) Challenge is designed to promote the development of processes to extract oxygen from lunar regolith on the scale of a pilot plant. Like the Regolith Excavation Challenge, this contest is sponsored by the California Space Education and Workforce Institute (CSEWI).

The Beam Power Challenge is designed to promote the development of new power distribution technologies, which can then be applied to many aspects of space exploration, including surface- or space-based point-to-point power transmission or delivery for robotic and/or human expeditions to planetary surfaces.

Another aspect of the Innovation Incubator, the Facilitated Access to the Space Environment for Technology Development and Training (FAST) program, facilitates access to the space environment for testing by providing cost-shared access to parabolic flights.

A big challenge to technology infusion is the perceived risk by program and project managers, and they generally desire technologies to be at TRL 6 by their preliminary design review. A key element of achieving TRL 6 is demonstrating a technology in the relevant environment, including the gravity environment—from microgravity to lunar or Martian gravity levels. Toward that end, the FAST program seeks to provide more opportunities for advancing TRLs by providing partnership opportunities to demonstrate technologies in these environments.

Currently, space technology development often stalls at the mid-technology readiness levels due to lack of opportunities to test prototypes in relevant environments. In addition, limited testing opportunities often have high associated costs or require lengthy waits. NASA recently selected a commercial service provider for parabolic aircraft flight to simulate multiple gravity environments. FAST will purchase services through this new procurement mechanism and provide partnership opportunities aimed at advancing needed space technologies to higher technology readiness levels. The objective is to provide advanced technologies with risk levels that enable more infusion, meeting the priorities of NASA’s mission directorates and their programs and projects.

Just as NASA is able to provide support to outside research agencies, there are many creative external organizations implementing innovative processes and methods that could be of benefit to NASA. Innovation Transfusion involves reaching out to some of these organizations on an ad hoc basis. Innovation Transfusion will be a focused activity to more strategically realize the potential from external creativity. Innovation Transfusion will accomplish this goal through the implementation of NASA Innovation Ambassadors, a technical training program that places NASA technical employees at external organizations, and NASA Innovation Scouts, NASA teams participating in focused workshops to exchange information on specific innovations with external organizations. Innovation Transfusion will follow an annual process to select ambassadors and schedule scout workshops with the goal of incorporating innovations into NASA to meet Agency needs. Innovation Transfusion is expected to place its first Innovation Ambassador at an external organization in 2008.

Partnership Development

The Innovative Partnerships Program brokers many types of agreements between the Agency and industry, like the Space Act Agreement being signed here, where Goddard Space Flight Center and Northrop Grumman are partnering to answer key questions in climate change and planetary science.

The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 and subsequent legislation recognize the transfer of federally owned or originated technology to be a national priority. Accordingly, NASA is obliged to provide for the widest practicable dissemination of information concerning results of NASA’s activities. The legislation specifically mandates that each Federal agency have a formal technology transfer program, and take an active role in transferring technology to the private sector and state and local governments for the purposes of commercial and other application of the technology for the national benefit. In accordance with NASA’s obligations under mandating legislation, IPP, on behalf of NASA, facilitates the transfer of technology to which NASA has title for commercial application and other national benefit. IPP seeks out potential licensees and negotiates license agreements to transfer NASA technology. IPP typically facilitates over 50 new licenses with the private sector each year.

Over the past 50 years, NASA has performed some amazing feats and made many powerful discoveries. However, aware that it does not have all the answers, NASA continuously looks for partners to help develop new technologies, inform the public about advancements, and to take existing business practices to a new level of effectiveness.

To complement IPP’s Partnership Development efforts, the National Technology Transfer Center (NTTC) <http://www.nttc.edu> links U.S. industry with Federal laboratories and universities that have the technologies, the facilities, and the world-class researchers that industry needs to maximize product development opportunities. The NTTC has worked with NASA since 1989, providing the services and capabilities needed to meet the changing needs of NASA for managing intellectual property and creating technology partnerships.

The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) <http://www.federallabs.org> was organized in 1974 and formally chartered by the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986 to promote and strengthen technology transfer nationwide. More than 700 major Federal laboratories and centers, including NASA, are currently members. The mission of the FLC is twofold: 1) To promote and facilitate the rapid movement of Federal laboratory research results and technologies into the mainstream U.S. economy by fostering partnerships and collaboration with the private sector, academia, economic development organizations, and other entities engaged in technology development; and 2) To use a coordinated program that meets the technology transfer support needs of FLC member laboratories, agencies, and their potential partners in the transfer process.

Affiliate Organizations

Each year, the Innovative Partnerships Program hosts the New Technology Reporting (NTR) Program to recognize innovators who have filed NTRs, received patents, or made significant efforts to assist in establishing partnerships or transferring technology. In May 2007, Greg Olsen, entrepreneur and the third private citizen to orbit the Earth aboard the International Space Station, spoke at the event about how his company benefited from involvement with the NASA SBIR program.

The road to technology commercialization begins with the basic and applied research results from the work of scientists, engineers, and other technical and management personnel. The NASA Scientific and Technical Information (STI) program <http://www.sti.nasa.gov> provides wide dissemination of NASA’s research results.

The NASA STI program offers users Internet access to its database of over 4 million citations, as well as many in full text; online ordering of documents; and the NASA STI Help Desk (help@sti.nasa.gov) for assistance in accessing STI resources and information. Free registration with the program is available for qualified users through the NASA Center for AeroSpace Information.

The NASA Technology Portal <http://technology.nasa.gov> provides access to NASA’s technology inventory and numerous examples of the successful transfer of NASA-sponsored technology. TechFinder, the main feature of the Internet site, allows users to search technologies and success stories, as well as submit requests for additional information.

Working closely with NASA’s IPP offices and public information offices, the Space Foundation each year recognizes individuals, organizations, and companies that develop innovative products based on space technology. These honorees are enshrined in the Space Technology Hall of Fame <http://www.spacetechhalloffame.org>. The ever-growing list of inductees showcases the significant contributions that space technology has made to improve the quality of life for everyone around the world.

Technology Innovation is one of NASA’s magazines for business and technology, published by the Innovative Partnerships Program.

For more than three decades, NASA Tech Briefs <http://www.techbriefs.com> has reported to industry on any new, commercially significant technologies developed in the course of NASA R&D efforts. The monthly magazine features innovations from NASA, industry partners, and contractors that can be applied to develop new or improved products and solve engineering or manufacturing problems.

Authored by the engineers or scientists who performed the original work, the briefs cover a variety of disciplines, including computer software, mechanics, and life sciences. Most briefs offer a free supplemental technical support package, which explains the technology in greater detail and provides contact points for questions or licensing discussions.

Technology Innovation <http://www.ipp.nasa.gov/innovation> is published quarterly by the Innovative Partnerships Program. Regular features include current news and opportunities in technology transfer and commercialization, and innovative research and development.

NASA Spinoff <http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto> is an annual print and electronic publication featuring successful commercial and industrial applications of NASA technology, current research and development efforts, and the latest developments from the NASA Innovative Partnerships Program.