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Green cheese. A Blue Moon. The Red Planet.
As we explore new worlds, we learn about their true composition --
looking at the materials that may hold the key to understanding the planets origins and life forms.
Through NASA's Small Business innovation Research, or SBIR Program, a small company in Mountain View, California
is creating new technologies for sampling and analyzing materials on other planets and here, at home.
inXitu, Incorporated develops innovative x-ray techniques and tools that identify and examine those materials wherever they may be.
One of the firm's technologies has been integrated into NASA's 2009 Mars Science Laboratory Mission.
They had a really serious problem with the reliability of the system and as part of the SBIR,
we developed a mechanical implementation that made it reliable and easy to drive and something that would really work.
In an effort to improve the technologies they created for the 2009 Mars Mission, the firm is now exploring new concepts through
SBIR contracts with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
With funding from Ames Research Center, the firm is developing an air purification
technology that uses carbon nanotube cathodes for future space travel.
The intention is to miniaturize it to the point where we can put it inside a vehicle and the
vehicle could be used -the shuttle, an inhabited spacecraft, or an airplane, even a car.
inXitu's technology is also being transferred to other applications here on Earth.
They've commercialized a portable sampling unit for field research. The unit is called TERRA.
Terra is a direct by-product of all the development we have done for NASA for this flight mission and that includes the technology
we have developed under the SBIR project. It's a small instrument that does pretty much everything
the Mars instrument does but in a much more affordable package that people can use out in the field.
Compared to other similar X-ray diffraction units, Terra is very small and compact.
It's the first time researchers have been able to actually use this type of method in the field.
Scientists have used a prototype of Terra in the field to simulate how to remotely
interact with the instruments when conducting experiments on Mars.
Partnering with Ames and the Department of Homeland Security, the firm has received an SBIR Phase 3 contract to develop
a new type of airport baggage screening system. The new system would speed up the screening process.
For the art world, inXitu received funding from the Getty Trust to create a non-destructive unit for cultural heritage research.
That's a derivative of the Mars project-it's taking the technology that we have developed back to Earth on very practical issues and
that case it's a paint analyzer-the Getty Conservation Institute is interested in having an x-Ray diffraction instrument that can be used on site.
The instrument will allow the Institute to examine art work in place, rather than having to take the art to another location.
In the world of science, research performed in situ, means in the original position. As NASA explores the galaxy, inXitu, Inc
plans to have its technologies help with experiments done in place - wherever that may be.