which is the latest version of Nasrtan and how is it different from the previous ?

NASTRAN is a finite element analysis (FEA) program that was originally developed for NASA in the late 1960s by Stephen Burns of the University of Rochester under United States government funding for the Aerospace industry. NASTRAN software application was written to help design more efficient space vehicles such as the Space Shuttle. NASTRAN was released to the public in 1971 by NASA’s Office of Technology Utilization. The commercial use of NASTRAN has helped to analyze the behavior of elastic structures of any size, shape, or purpose. For example, the automotive industry uses the program to design front suspension systems and steering linkages The Latest Version of NASTRAN Previously Launched in 2014. read less

The following software options, based on NASTRAN original source code are available: MSC Nastran NASTRAN-xMG (acquired by MSC Software) NEi Nastran (A PC/Linux-based version of the original NASTRAN source code) NX Nastran (acquired by Siemens PLM Software re-branded to Siemens NX (Unigraphics)) Nastran distributed by the Open Channel Foundation MSC Nastran MSC Nastran is the original commercial Nastran product started by Dr. Richard MacNeal in 1963. MSC Nastran is commonly utilized for performing structural analysis. Although utilized in every industry, it maintains a strong following in aerospace and automotive industries for performing computational stress and strain analysis of component and system level models of structures. Since 1963, MSC Nastran has continued to evolve and extend capabilities to dynamics, rotordynamics, nonlinear, thermal, high impact, NVH, fluid structural interactive and fatigue analysis. Today it couples with MSC Marc and LS-Dyna to provide highly nonlinear coupled analysis solutions. NASTRAN-xMG Built from the same base code as the original NASTRAN software created by NASA that includes the original NASTRAN architecture and DMAP language, NASTRAN-xMG provides unlimited problem size, high-speed solver technology, and substructuring analysis options. The principal founder of the company is Dr. Richard H. MacNeal.[9] NEi Nastran NEi Nastran is a general purpose finite element analysis solver used to analyze linear and nonlinear stress, dynamics, and heat transfer characteristics of structures and mechanical components. It is available on a variety of platforms including 32/64-bit Windows and Linux.[10] This software was acquired by Autodesk in May 2014. NX Nastran NX Nastran resulted from an FTC action against MSC Corporation for alleged antitrust activity. The antitrust settlement allowed the 2003 purchase of a royalty-free, perpetual license for the MSC.Nastran 2001 source code by UGS. UGS was previously the Unigraphics division of EDS. Nastran's CAE capabilities were added to NX Unigraphics' CAD and other components to form the EDS/UGS PLM Solutions product life-cycle management suite. This product line was acquired by SIEMENS in 2007 and became SIEMENS PLM Software. The purchase included a perpetual, worldwide, free of royalties, nonexclusive license of the software program MSC.Nastran v2001, other assets related to the software, and all copyright and trademark rights acquired as a result of MSC's acquisitions of Universal Analytics Inc. and Computerized Structural Analysis & Research Corp. read less