Understanding your needs

The technology transfer team works with you to gain a clear understanding of your program’s technology needs and goals. They stay on top of changing needs as well as performance, schedule, cost, and risk considerations. Contact Clark Darty at (256) 544-2728 or e-mail: ronald.c.darty@nasa.gov to get started.

Identifying technology solutions

Once they fully understand your goals, the technology transfer team looks to external organizations—including business, government, and academia—and other NASA centers to identify possible solutions and partners.

Often, an exact technology solution is not available. When that happens, the technology transfer team may also consider industries with which you might not regularly come into contact (for example, medical, retail, and telecommunications) that are developing innovations that may be modified or further enhanced to suit your program or mission needs.

Offering you options

Marshall’s Technology Transfer Office provides you with multiple options for technologies that have been evaluated and meet your program needs as-is or with further development through an infusion partnership. This sometimes involves introducing these technologies into the trade space for your evaluation and selection.

Facilitating discussions

As you move closer to selecting the appropriate technology for your program, the technology transfer team can serve as your communications facilitator, relieving you of the burden of setting up meetings and locating appropriate contacts. They can arrange webinars, conference calls, face-to-face meetings, and more—continually evaluating the level and form of discussion needed to best suit your requirements.

Identifying a partnering mechanism

Choosing the appropriate agreement or funding arrangement is critical to a successful technology infusion. Marshall’s technology transfer professionals are skilled at guiding you to the arrangement that best suits your needs as well as those of the partner. Most partnership agreements are formalized using a Space Act Agreement.

Partnerships involving specific NASA funding may also be considered.

Negotiating the agreement terms

As key players from your mission/program and the partner organization move toward selecting the type of agreement best suited to everyone’s needs, the technology transfer team facilitates the negotiation efforts between the parties. Marshall’s technology transfer professionals are highly skilled at bringing together the relevant stakeholders to ensure that all parties are satisfied with the agreement terms moving forward. A key part of any agreement is the Statement of Work, which defines roles and responsibilities as well as development milestones.

Meeting with technical personnel

Marshall’s technology transfer professionals facilitate, to the degree requested or practical, meetings between your organization and technical personnel at the partner organization. Involvement is tailored to the needs of the relationship.

Collaboration and interaction with the partner may involve placing a number of the partner’s employees on site at Marshall, and/or remote meetings via webinars and regular conference calls. The administrative details of such meetings can be handled by Marshall’s technology transfer professionals so that your group and the partner personnel involved can focus on the technology.

Developing, testing, and/or validating the technology

As you begin active work under the infusion partnership, your group will be actively involved in the continued development of the technology (or leveraging of the expertise or resources provided by the partner), including potential validation and testing on site at Marshall.

Depending on the partnering mechanism selected and the type of technology involved, the partner may be expected to provide prototypes and/or software code, any existing documentation, any existing testing or validation results, and examples of previous use(s) for the technology. You are also involved (as negotiated in your partnership agreement) in providing access to facilities and expertise for a truly collaborative agreement.

Attending status update meetings

As part of any agreement, regular status update meetings are scheduled to check progress towards milestones and identify any potential obstacles or challenges. This is an ideal opportunity to strategize ways to mitigate any foreseen risks and help ensure the success of your infusion partnership.

Realizing the outcome: infusion and/or market readiness

As your work progresses, a successful technology infusion outcome becomes the focus. Successful infusion efforts can have any of several possible outcomes. The ideal outcome is to infuse the technology directly into a Marshall mission or program. In other cases, technologies may be further developed or validated, enabling them to enter the trade space where they can be marketed and sold for new uses and remain in consideration for future NASA missions.

Maintaining your relationship

Even as your current infusion partnership comes to a conclusion, Marshall’s technology transfer team and your group will stay engaged as appropriate with you and the partner organization to maintain a relationship. As new opportunities for infusion agreements or other technology transfer partnerships are identified, Marshall’s technology transfer professionals can help find new sources of funding or agreement arrangements that can lead to further collaboration between the partner organization and your program or mission.