The Digital Twin Opportunity

Developments in enabling technology are opening up more use cases for virtual models of real-world objects.

Pushkar P. Apte and Costas J. Spanos

August 11, 2021

Half a century ago, NASA’s moon shot landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon and set fire to our imaginations. Technology innovations from the program went on to seed entire industries, including microelectronics, software, and communications, which now form the backbone of our digital century. Another innovation was that NASA built and maintained a physical twin of the spacecraft on the ground so that it could troubleshoot problems without risk to the mission. This proved crucial during the troubled Apollo 13 mission and helped NASA bring the ...