Optical Instrumentation and Nondestructive Evaluation Branch Research and Technology Advances at NASA Glenn Research Center since 1941

This paper is a transitory decadal overview capturing the current research and technology accomplishments that are being developed by the Optical Instrumentation and Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) Branch at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Center (GRC). The emphasis is on the latest GRC research and technology advances with a brief discussion of the history and technical background of optical instrumentation since the 1940s, NDE sciences and methods since the 1970s, fiber optics since the 1980s, space-qualified instrumentation since the 1990s, and propulsion health monitoring since the beginning of the current century. This paper also identifies and describes recent and future technical directions based on/guided by current NASA strategic and GRC and NASA project implementation plans.