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NASA announced that it has mobilized some of its best minds to apply research and ingenuity to combat the coronavirus.
The US space agency showed a variety of devices to President Donald Trump, including a pressure helmet and a surface decontamination system, along with a fan.
The technologies come from NASA’s crowdsourcing platform, called NASA @ Work, which solicited ideas from employees and asked them to vote on the submissions to help combat the outbreak.
The new developments are the result of the organization’s engineers being forced to work from home due to the pandemic that is sweeping the world.
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NASA showed a variety of devices to President Donald Trump, including a pressure helmet (right) and a surface decontamination system (center), along with a fan (left)
In March, NASA closed its offices after employees at six different facilities contracted the coronavirus.
However, for the past month, staff have been using their brainpower and abilities to assist the US government. USA To stop the spread of the virus and treat patients.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told Trump during a White House meeting: ‘The question is what do you do with rocket scientists when they stay home? What they do is build amazing things. “
Bridenstine notes that NASA’s workforce will do everything possible to develop all three technologies, including the NASA VITAL fan created at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the developed Aerospace Valley Positive Pressure Helmet. by a regional consortium with NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, and an industry-produced surface decontamination system called AMBUStat with technology developed at NASA’s Glenn Research Center.
The Aerospace Valley Positive Pressure Helmet, the device was successfully tested by Antelope Valley Hospital physicians
NASA introduced the ventilator last week, which was designed and developed in just 37 days and can be mass-produced and tailored to the needs of each patient.
JPL Director Michael Watkins said: “We specialize in spacecraft, not medical device manufacturing, but excellent engineering, rigorous testing, and rapid prototyping are among our specialties.”
When the people at JPL realized that they might have what it takes to support the medical community and the community at large, they felt it was their duty to share their ingenuity, experience, and drive. ”
NASA engineers are currently seeking Fast Track approval for the use of VITAL in the first line of coronavirus from the United States Food and Drug Administration.
As with conventional ventilators, VITAL devices require that patients be sedated and that an oxygen tube be inserted into their airways to allow them to breathe.
The new device would not replace current hospital ventilators, which are designed to last for years and are capable of handling a much wider range of medical problems, in contrast to the custom VITAL COVID-19, which has a lifespan of around three to four months. .
NASA engineers have designed a mass-produced ventilator for COVID-19 patients in just 37 days, one with only one-seventh the parts of a conventional ventilator. In the picture, the ‘VITAL (Ventilator Intervention Technology Accessly Locally) device passed a critical test at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York on April 21.
Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California developed the VITAL image, to free up traditional ventilators for patients with the worst symptoms.
One of the working group’s first efforts was to build an oxygen helmet to treat COVID-19 patients with minor symptoms and minimize the need for those patients to use ventilators. The device works like a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine to force oxygen into the patient’s poorly functioning lungs.
Called the Aerospace Valley Positive Pressure Helmet, the device was successfully tested by doctors at Antelope Valley Hospital.
The Spaceship Company began producing 500 this week, and an application was submitted to the FDA on April 22 for an emergency use authorization.
The decontamination system, called AMBUStat, is being used in police cars and other areas that kill virus particles in the air and on the surface. NASA is now conducting additional research to continue maximizing the effectiveness of this device on COVID-19.
The technologies come from NASA’s crowdsourcing platform, NASA @ Work, which asked employees to submit ideas to help combat the coronavirus, which started earlier this month.
More than 200 ideas were submitted and more than 4,000 employees voted for the best technologies to be developed.
Cathy Mangum, NASA’s Deputy Assistant Administrator, said: “NASA’s workforce is about solving problems.”
“We have extremely smart engineers and passionate people who really wanted to help, and it really came up as an increase in the workforce of,” Hey, how can we help? “
