Aerospace Corporation’s Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) is playing a vital role in accelerating the adoption of innovative solutions across the space industry.
Bridging Innovation to Application
Established within the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO), the OTT serves as a key link, connecting groundbreaking technologies with government and commercial partners. This facilitates the wider adoption and proliferation of these technologies. The aim is to accelerate the maturation and enhancement of these technologies to support U.S. space missions.
Deborah Salvaggio, Associate Principal Director in the Office of the Chief Technology Officer, emphasized the importance of this work. “Effective technology transfer is vital to ensuring Aerospace’s innovation and commitment to technical excellence is making the biggest impact possible to support the nation’s most important needs,” she said. “It’s one of the very reasons why we exist. As an FFRDC, the government is looking to us to help solve the hard problems and make that knowledge accessible for industry partners.”
Targeted Technologies for Maximum Impact
To maximize the impact, OTT established the “targeted tech” distinction. This designation identifies high-impact transfer opportunities based on customer demand, Aerospace’s priorities, and the potential value of impact.
According to Salvaggio, “Using the targeted tech rubric enables us to focus resources on bringing technology transfer considerations into the discussion as early as possible in the product life cycle. Integrating technology transfer into the early stages of technology innovation and development increases our ability to support rapid transfer and deliver the most impact for Aerospace and our government partners.” She further noted OTT also supports non-targeted technologies by facilitating specific transfer opportunities, regardless of their lifecycle stage.
Externally, the OTT has improved the visibility of Aerospace’s extensive patent portfolio and is expanding outreach to potential external partners.
Successful Technology Transfer in Action
One such success story is Aerospace’s Handle, a universal interface module. This module streamlines payload integration and was successfully demonstrated in the Slingshot 1 mission. The OTT leveraged its T2 Strategy Framework to support the wider adoption of critical technologies. These include the small satellite platform DiskSat and the Handle module.
Patricia Lew, Senior Project Leader in Space Domain Superiority at Aerospace, commented on the importance of this process. “Aerospace’s ability to develop the proof of concept is in the nation’s best interest, as is the subsequent technology transfer to industry after the concept is demonstrated,” she said. “When demonstrating a proof of concept, a designer’s focus is on the technological viability of new innovations, like Handle as an example. Manufacturability and sustainability aren’t forefront at this stage. However, industry is keen on bringing that economical scalability to the equation, and that is essential to lowering costs and operational barriers for sustainable government use. These are all win-wins for the nation’s space enterprise.”
In fiscal year 2024, the OTT identified five prioritized targeted technologies, with more under consideration. Some of these technologies are assessed to have a potentially profound impact for future space architecture.
“Aerospace recognized early the value of some of our key technology innovations like a smallsat payload interface standard or a new form factor for CubeSats,” Salvaggio said. “We are uniquely situated to take these advanced concepts to the next step of being commercially available to our customers.”
For further details about the Office of Technology Transfer (OTT), visit https://aerospace.org/techtransfer
