It takes a vast array of international organizations, collaboration across scientific, commercial, and partners carefully orchestrated design, production, launch, and management of the mission bringing together brand-new thoughts, products, and processes to make a launch that is successful
Innovation acceleration for the good of mankind
Innovations originating from space exploration span communication, medicine, and transportation to the everyday. A great summary of a small sample of interesting innovations is detailed in the Inc. magazine article from Bill Murphy Jr.
Innovation and beyond
One example of an innovation that was developed as part of the Space programs is advanced water filtration. The same technology that was used in Apollo is now used to clean water in remote villages. This is described in the NASA Spin off article from 2004
The impact of water filtration on global health and sustainability is huge, and being able to use this spin-off technology is helping people all over the world
Let’s think about how it helps so much beyond the immediate health.
- Fewer water-based sicknesses – reducing sickness and mortality providing for a healthy community.
- Less need for expensive hospital and medicine resources and their distribution by reducing sickness at its source
- Reduced pollution from transportation to move centrally filtered water to remote regions
When we apply technology developed for Space to other industries, we see how much this innovation has impacted the world.
Artemis – Technology Developments
Once again, partners of the NASA space program are innovating, finding new ways to solve challenges from design to launch and beyond. One example is SAP customer Solvay, a science company whose technologies bring benefits to many aspects of daily life. With more than 21,000 employees in 63 countries. Solvay is a high-performance composite and polymer materials and solutions provider that has been a key partner for Space exploration for over 50 years. Solvay supplied Northrop Grumman with its high-temperature ablative materials for use in Artemis’ solid rocket motor (SRM) nozzles offering enhanced insulation properties and thermal performance. As hot gases exit the rocket motor, ablative materials char, creating an additional thermal insulation layer protecting the nozzle structure.
In addition, Solvay's glass phenolic structural overwrap material is used to provide strength to the nozzle.
Technology for a sustainable planet
Carmelo Lo Faro President, Solvay Materials Segment, a recent appointee to the ExCom of the Aerospace Industry Association, said recently of the game-changing innovations coming from Artemis and space exploration “ Artemis follows a long tradition of bringing science, engineering, and creativity together to push the limits of what mankind believes is possible. At Solvay, we are innovating to make missions such as Artemis possible but also to find solutions to humanity’s biggest challenges by generating scientific breakthroughs that protect our heritage for generations to come”.
Innovation Acceleration is a process
Innovation acceleration is a scientific process requiring a framework from design thinking to technology application. Software, along with people and capital work together to orchestrate the design, manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, delivery, and service of equipment for a sustainable product lifecycle.
SAP is happy to be one of the core components bringing together technology for NASA And ESA Artemis partners. New systems of integration accelerate the design to the manufacturing process and build from the continuous learning from IoT sensors to constantly improve and push boundaries
It takes a village
To sum it all up, I believe a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In space, there are no product return policies. Everything must work the first time, every time. To accelerate launches or reduce the technical impact of a launch, companies must collaborate and simulate. Bringing innovation together across global partners and organizations requires an orchestration across the entire supply chain to achieve the unthinkable in Aerospace exploration.
The Future is ours
NASA and ESA Innovation is our competitive edge building upon the community of industrial, international, and academic partnerships forged for the space station. Commercial companies will play an increasing role in the space industry: launching rockets and satellites, transporting cargo and crew, building infrastructure space fostering opportunities to turn new knowledge into things that improve life here on Earth.
Learn more about NASA , Solvay, SAP Aerospace innovation programs here
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