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Space Walks & Garbage: NASA Co-Op #3 Week One
Space Garbage
Familiarized myself with the Inventory and Stowage Officer (ISO) team this week. They are a console position Mission Control that is in charge of managing the inventory and stowage of all US items on board the International Space Station (ISS). ISO prepares products for upcoming real-time operations and coordinates with other consoles regarding stowage plans. ISO is responsible for directing the crew to consolidate, relocate, audit, and unload a visiting vehicle. ISO as well as the Mission Control consoles’ mantra is to distill all information and procedures to make astronaut’s life easier. This is critical because astronauts have to navigate a lot of factors folks on ground don’t have to like; CO2 clustering around their face due to lack of gravity causing drowsiness, homesickness, isolation and general aggregations of communication challenges.
This week we focused on double checking the list of garbage that will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere in Japanese JAXA’s HTV6 cargo ship. Tediously we reviewed each item so nothing got thrown away that shouldn’t and items that would stink up the station were not missed.
Spacewalk
Conducted on the job training in Mission Control's support room called MPSR (Multi-Purpose Support Room, pronounced "mipser") during the Friday the Thirteenth spacewalk. With an official Mission Control headset I followed along the astronauts tasks. Astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet spacewalked outside of ISS to update power systems. Upgrading power system of ISS was the overall goal of this month’s suite of Extra Vehicular Activities. Three 428lb Lithium-Ion batteries replaced nickel hydrogen batteries to store power for ISS during this spacewalk. Before the conclusion of the spacewalk engineers in mission control confirmed the batteries’ integration and initial power storage operations.
MPSRs usually use multi-view video with six images of ISS’ exterior and the crew to observe tasks being completed. They listen in on live loops to the Flight Director’s final calls, CAPCOM’s instructions and astronaut’s questions. If necessary MPSR operators can relay to their counterparts in front room Mission Control (FCR-1) information that can be filtered and relayed to Flight.
During the spacewalk there are many glove checks to check for leaks and anomalies. These gloves are impressively engineered to be thick enough to pressurize protect you from space yet gentle enough to allow you to feel space station through them. Astronauts could confirm with Mission Control that batteries were correctly mounted into place by describing drill rotations, torque and light sensor reading on the hand tool.
WAYS TO GET INVOLVED
Intern at NASA, year round, summer, spring or fall semesters.
Co-Op at NASA (Pathways Internship) and get sworn in as a Civil Servant.
Full-time employment at NASA opportunities!
This week's NASA achievements.
Everything about Mission Control from a Flight Director
Cargo Ship Choreography: NASA Co-Op #3 Day One
Today I returned to Mission Control to support the ISO (Inventory Stowage Officers) console. This team is in charge of packing cargo ships, choreographing the unloading of cargo ships and letting astronauts know where they misplaced their socks. Basically, ISO knows where everything is in the bird's nest that is the International Space Station.
My task is to choreograph the unloading of a cargo ship docked to space station. This is no ordinary choreography however, I will be using a device I created training for with another Mission Control in an earlier Co-Op. In the Fall of 2015 I produced a training video for a device that has the potential to make difficult procedures easier for astronauts. Astronaut Scott Kelly and Tim Peake ended up using this training in space. This week I will be familiarizing myself with standard unloading procedures, watching videos of astronauts testing this new device and questioning what is the hardest part of unloading that could be made easier with this device.
In layman's terms - I am choreographing the unloading of a cargo ship onto space station that the astronauts will perform by using a helpful device.
My battle station.
Saturn V stage.
Passionate about space, football & social media? Join NASA Social at NASA's Johnson Space Center on February 1st for a pre Super Bowl LI event. Deadline noon on January 9th: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/go-behind-the-scenes-at-johnson-space-center-leading-up-to-super-bowl-li
I had the awesome opportunity to have coffee with Johnson Space Center (JSC) Director Ellen Ochoa and Deputy Director Mark Geyer. Above I am pictured to the left of Ochoa in a red blazer and I look pretty serious writing notes. JSC leaders have been striving to hear voices from employees up high, in the trenches, wise, and new. Recently JSC Center and Deputy Directors have hosted coffees to share their goals for JSC and listen to concerns. Ochoa and Geyer shared their vision of JSC 2.016, how NASA can do more with less resources and deliver what is expected and beyond on current missions. Out of all NASA contractors and civil servants I was randomly selected to share my perspective and concerns as a Co-Op.
JSC 2.016
It's no secret that NASA's budget is far less than it was during the Apollo Era. NASA's budget was over 4% of the federal budget during the Space Race to the Moon and now below 1% despite NASA's goals to journey to Mars. Keeping realistic in funds and resources JSC 2.016 is a mantra adopted by NASA employees to do more with the resources they have. At the coffee Ochoa shared that the goals of JSC 2.016 is to ensure our work is pushing forward NASA's current missions, enabling change by listening to and adopting new ideas, removing obstacles that hinder progress, and share NASA's missions with communities.
Concerns
Before attending the coffee I polled JSC interns and Co-Ops to see if they had concerns and questions to share. Within moments of the coffee starting Ochoa and Geyer shared essential insights on how NASA’s mission is evolving in a five, ten and beyond year sense - it was very Carl Sagan Cosmos-esk. Once I was brought to this level of long-term thinking my key concern broadened from specifics. During my opportunity to talk I mentioned the concern about the vagueness of the Journey to Mars mission compared to the solidity of Space Launch System, Orion, Space Station and Commercial Crew missions. I was surprised to hear that fluidity of our Journey to Mars is actually intended. Discoveries and knowledge from Space Launch System, Orion, Space Station and Commercial Crew missions are necessary before solidifying the Journey to Mars. During those missions we will collect a lot of data on the vehicles that will be carrying our astronauts, learn new things we didn’t plan to learn and test the waters with deep space collaboration with private industries and international partners. Fluidity is the nature of NASA’s long-term impact on humanity which is unique to all other forces in the world advocating for short term instant gratification (short term can even mean one year, eight years and even decades compared to humanity as a whole). NASA must deliver what is expected of us and beyond on these current solid missions to ensure more solidified Mars related mission in the future.
We Still Need NASA
With all the SpaceX, Lockheed Martin and general private space industry hype some may have the impression that we no longer need NASA for space exploration. Articles titled "U.S. government should fund private space companies, not NASA" paint false claims of competition between government space missions and private industry. During this coffee this misconception of competition was expunged and I was re-energized about why we still need NASA. NASA, as a subset of the US Government, awards contracts to private space companies that would otherwise not be able to pursue these aerospace endeavors because they do not bring in a profit. The government can risk to make these long-term investments without certainty of short-term instant gratification like profit. There is a tendency to forget that NASA has been contracting work to private companies since the 1960s. Grumman Aircraft was contracted to build the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) in 1962. Being a government agency, NASA can foster a unique relationship between other countries space agencies such as ROSCOSMOS, JAXA and ESA. Through decades NASA is the government agency that has lead the cohesiveness and steady beat of the drum of space exploration progress.
A dozen NASA Interns from Johnson Space Center are road tripping to Kennedy Space Center to tour and watch the launch tomorrow October 30th. The United Launch Alliance (ULA) are launching a GPS into semi-synchronous circular orbit about 11,000 nautical miles over Earth's surface. This GPS will help military personnel and civilians navigate providing data. WATCH THE LAUNCH here October 30th 12:17pm EDT: http://www.ulalaunch.com/nasa.aspx Mission Overview: http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Mission_Booklets/AV/av_gpsiif11_mob.pdf More About Atlas V: http://www.ulalaunch.com/atlas-v-to-launch-gps-iif11.aspx Rocket photo by ULA
Dedicating my pencil sketch to the Apollo 11 anniversary!
Intern Week 6: A NASA Coincidence
Coincidence
I had barely graduated high school before embarking to NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio for an internship two summers ago. Equipped with my experience captaining a FIRST Robotics team I thought I was fully prepared for anything the engineering world could throw at me. Engineers racing to complete a power system for a multipurpose space habitat greeted me with hardware that needed testing, circuit board designs that needed fabricating, and copious acronyms that made my learning curve spike.
Fast forward two summers and I am now at at a different center, NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC), creating crew displays for that same habitat and same hardware. By crazy coincidence my mentor from Glenn came to JSC this week to run the full systems test with the displays my current department made. This system test means a lot to me after being on each end of the development. I was the only person who new the electronics inside of the power system and the digital guts powering the displays.
Astronaut Lunch
Yes you read that right lunch not launch. I had the gracious opportunity to meet Astronaut Mike Hopkins over lunch! He was on International Space Station (ISS) expedition 36 & 37, took part in two EVAs (extra vehicular activity), he has spent 166 days in space, and just a year ago he was in space. It was wonderful to talk to him about NASA, ways to become an astronaut and celebrity encounters.
Thermo Testing
A couple weeks ago I mentioned that us interns took part in thermo testing of cameras from the ISS in the wee hours of the night. In honor of our assistance our division, the Avionic Systems Division, awarded us will certificates in Team Excellence for "reinforcing the weary EHDC project team during overnight thermo testing." Caleb from: astronomicalwonders.tumblr.com also received this honor.
Good morning America and the whole wide world. Here is Pluto! Congratulations to New Horizon’s crew for their hard work and dedication. So inspiring that some of those on the mission have been with it since they were undergraduates in college! At 9pmET we get the first “phone home” pings from New Horizons on its mission status. Then for the next 16 months we get a waterfall of data from Pluto. Watch here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/
Intern Week 4: The Red Phone
Mouse clicks resonate throughout the lab mimicking an orchestra of League of Legend players. At work I was certainly not partaking in an online battle arena but programming in LabVIEW. The constant clicking is a byproduct of a visual programming language and my toll for simplicity.
My current task is to imagineer methods of navigating touch screen interfaces for a space habitat. Ideas have ranged from a touch of a finger to immerse you in the data of a solar power regulator, to a home button that will transport you back to home with an interactive schematic of the habitat's devices. While it's easy to brainstorm how an interface will be navigated on the white board getting the compiled program to act as expected is another story.
While taking a break from wires and code blocks our mentor took me and my fellow interns on a tour of the current Mission Control center and historic Apollo Mission Control room. In the current Mission Control we saw a live feed from the International Space Station (ISS) zooming above Australia. In only 92 minutes ISS orbits Earth and sees the sun rise. The astronauts were currently sleeping when we stopped by but we saw one of them float out of their quarters into a hallway before loss of signal (a normal occurrence).
Defined by the walls decorated in mission patches, green control stations, and a soft smell of cigars we entered into the historic Apollo Mission Control center. Shouts of joy once echoed in this room when The Eagle landed as well as unsettling silence of held breath during Apollo 13. The Red Telephone was Mission Control's life line to the Department of Defense and could be contacted immediately about issues. the It was an honor to be in the same room as history's heroes.
Pictures - Top: The Red Phone, Middle Left: American flag that flew to the Moon, Middle Right: Live feed from the ISS, Bottom Left: Current Mission Control, Bottom Right: At a historic Apollo Mission Control center station.
Hey there, oh wait... there’s no one inside.
Us interns in front of NASA’s Saturn V rocket. Yes that astro-nerd on the far left is Caleb who is a fellow intern and Tumblr star: http://astronomicalwonders.tumblr.com/ who blogs about stars.
Intern Week 1: Code in a Storm
Comment your code and batten down the hatches. One week into my NASA intern experience and I have become well aquainted with the LabVIEW programming language and Houston's tropical storms.
LabVIEW is a visual programming language where instead of writing lines of code to make a "while loop" you literally draw a loop around the function you want to repeat. Many FIRST Robotics teams and rapid prototyping engineers use LabVIEW. With this programming language I will translate packets of data from Orion Deep Space Habitat's devices to meaningful data and then display that data on a user interface. I'm still pinching myself because not only do I get to work alongside talented scientists but I am helping advance a project I worked on while interning at NASA Glenn Research Center in 2013. Some of the devices that I am translating data for, such as a solar power regulator, are devices I made a circuit board for at Glenn.
I captured pictures of The HIVE (Human Integrated Vehicles & Environments) lab we work in primarily because we were advised to cover the tech gear in plastic bags in preparation for a pending tropical storm. Coming from the icy tundra of Minnesota I am far from used to tropical storm and flood prep. Cutting long strips of plastic sheets with large industrial scissors I felt like one of Cinderella's woodland helpers. Now the Orion mock up is ready to meet Prince Charming at the ball.
Looking forward to creating schematics of the packet translator in Visio and making the translation process more autonomous this week!
Gaze upon this multistage monster that humans built #techisbeautiful #NASAIntern #jsc
Saturn V - the rocket built to fly is now a grounded beast. #techisbeautiful #NASAIntern #jsc
Intern Day Two: The HIVE
When we looked around the room there were Orion Mockups, huge displays, and technological toys we couldn’t wait to get our hands on.
After I met my mentor for the first time two fellow interns and I were briefed about our goals for the summer. This summer I’m working with NASA’s group called the HIVE (Human Integrated Vehicles & Environments). HIVE’s goal is to get new technologies in front of astronauts, operators, and users as soon as possible during development to make the technological interface human friendly. Some of the projects HIVE is working on includes user interfaces for onboard Orion, wearables to alert astronauts about important information, and test beds to simulate mock missions.
Within HIVE my main goal is to translate packets of information sent by devices on Orion’s Deep Space Habitat (DSH) and display this data in a meaningful way. For example, one of the devices on the DSH is a device which insures the habitat maintains a constant amount of power no matter how much light the solar arrays are receiving. This device is actually the same device I helped work on at my summer internship at NASA’s Glenn Research Center. Using LabVIEW programming software I translate these packets into meaningful data and display that data as a graphical user interface.
The HIVE lab were we work is a large glass room overlooking a warehouse room with Orion’s parachutes and a NASA meatball shaped simulator that used to be for acclimating astronauts to motion/ zero G sickness. HIVE has a mockup of the Orion crew helm that we have the opportunity to update as well.
Pictures of the lab coming soon!