Lightweight Tunable Infrared Filter, Phase I

Potential commercial applications include the retirement of satellites that have become unresponsive or unstable. For instance when this occurs in a constellation of satellites, where relative position to each other is critical, removing the defective satellite and replacing it with a new one is of great importance. A potential military application is the retirement of a spacecraft that attempts to maintain its orbit because it has become unresponsive and does not know not to fight the de-orbit process. It could also be applied to a satellite that is still responsive but it is still desired to de-orbit it.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.