Quadcopters conquer planetary terrain and provide real-world engineering experiences
2014-04-16
What better way for 16 young Johnson Space Center professionals to flex their newly acquired systems engineering skills than to gather early on a spring morning at the Planetary Analog Test Site for flight demonstrations?
Clear skies, calm winds and mild temperatures promised ideal flying conditions as Tim Rupp, Douglas Haskovec, Jessica Fichuk and the others assembled before the "rock yard" to steer their 14-month Space Systems Engineering and Development Program (SSEDP) participation toward a May graduation.
Separated into three teams who were each tasked with designing a unique payload dispenser, the up-and-comers gathered around a trio of drone-like quadcopters to prepare their custom-designed payload dispensers affixed below each of the model-airplane-sized flying machines for the day's aerial activities. Under radio control, each of the battery-powered quadcopters took flight and maneuvered over the sloped, boulder- and crater-dotted "rock yard," authentically landscaped to simulate the rugged terrains of an asteroid, Mars and the moon. Each of the agile flying machines flew low, intermittently descending toward one of 10 targets distributed across the rock yard to deploy small pucks on a “bulls eye.” The identical disks, equipped with radio-frequency identification chips, were carefully loaded in the individual dispensers prior to flight.
Advanced versions of these quadcopter prototypes may one day skim over distant planetary surfaces to deploy sensors designed to gather and relay environmental data to an outpost staffed by astronauts.
“Our goal was to deploy 10 pucks, and we did,” said Rupp, a mechanical engineer from JSC's Structural Engineering Division, obviously pleased with the performance of his team’s dispenser.
“This has been a good development project for us. It’s taken us through major project milestones from start to end in a very short amount of time,” Rupp explained. “Most NASA projects take 10 years. So, not a lot of people get to go through every review from start to finish. Now when we go out and work our real jobs, we’ll have some experience and know the right questions to ask and processes to follow.”
Like Rupp, Haskovec and the others competed for a place in the recently restructured systems engineering program. Now in its third class, SSEDP was introduced to develop a greater pool of technical experts at JSC with systems engineering and leadership skills. This year, SSEDP revised some of its focus on academics and case studies to integrate applied learning like the sensor-equipped quadcopters and challenging operational requirements provided by the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Office.
“It’s been good hands-on experience, especially the networking and the opportunity to understand the backgrounds and perspective of others,” said Haskovec, who works in Mission Operations on Orion spacecraft mechanical and electrical systems. As an operator, he’s interested in a better understanding of and an opportunity to influence early hardware design decisions.
“What we have learned from early programs is that it’s better to have operations injected into the beginning of the design process,” Haskovec said. “That’s the way to make sure the design is tailored for the end user.”
Fichuk’s regular duties in Safety and Mission Assurance led to work with the Mission Operations Division of the International Space Station, as well as the Commercial Crew Program. Her work with the quadcopter also brought new challenges.
“We stuck with the areas we knew, but also worked in areas where we had no previous experience,” Fichuk said. “I did software, which was out of my realm. We collaborated with the other teams as well on some of the tougher issues we faced.”
Fichuk and her colleagues have been under the guidance of Romell Thomas, a first-class SSEDP program manager from Human Resources, since March 2013. The young professionals were versed in the principles of human spaceflight, applied space systems engineering, verification and validation—and even congressional operations as they developed their quadcopter designs.
“This is very much real world,” Thomas said of the format changes that embraced the flight project as part of the instruction. “We’ve received a lot of good feedback from our participants and others around the center who think it’s a really good idea. We definitely want to keep doing this.”
Clear skies, calm winds and mild temperatures promised ideal flying conditions as Tim Rupp, Douglas Haskovec, Jessica Fichuk and the others assembled before the "rock yard" to steer their 14-month Space Systems Engineering and Development Program (SSEDP) participation toward a May graduation.
Separated into three teams who were each tasked with designing a unique payload dispenser, the up-and-comers gathered around a trio of drone-like quadcopters to prepare their custom-designed payload dispensers affixed below each of the model-airplane-sized flying machines for the day's aerial activities. Under radio control, each of the battery-powered quadcopters took flight and maneuvered over the sloped, boulder- and crater-dotted "rock yard," authentically landscaped to simulate the rugged terrains of an asteroid, Mars and the moon. Each of the agile flying machines flew low, intermittently descending toward one of 10 targets distributed across the rock yard to deploy small pucks on a “bulls eye.” The identical disks, equipped with radio-frequency identification chips, were carefully loaded in the individual dispensers prior to flight.
Advanced versions of these quadcopter prototypes may one day skim over distant planetary surfaces to deploy sensors designed to gather and relay environmental data to an outpost staffed by astronauts.
“Our goal was to deploy 10 pucks, and we did,” said Rupp, a mechanical engineer from JSC's Structural Engineering Division, obviously pleased with the performance of his team’s dispenser.
“This has been a good development project for us. It’s taken us through major project milestones from start to end in a very short amount of time,” Rupp explained. “Most NASA projects take 10 years. So, not a lot of people get to go through every review from start to finish. Now when we go out and work our real jobs, we’ll have some experience and know the right questions to ask and processes to follow.”
Like Rupp, Haskovec and the others competed for a place in the recently restructured systems engineering program. Now in its third class, SSEDP was introduced to develop a greater pool of technical experts at JSC with systems engineering and leadership skills. This year, SSEDP revised some of its focus on academics and case studies to integrate applied learning like the sensor-equipped quadcopters and challenging operational requirements provided by the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Office.
“It’s been good hands-on experience, especially the networking and the opportunity to understand the backgrounds and perspective of others,” said Haskovec, who works in Mission Operations on Orion spacecraft mechanical and electrical systems. As an operator, he’s interested in a better understanding of and an opportunity to influence early hardware design decisions.
“What we have learned from early programs is that it’s better to have operations injected into the beginning of the design process,” Haskovec said. “That’s the way to make sure the design is tailored for the end user.”
Fichuk’s regular duties in Safety and Mission Assurance led to work with the Mission Operations Division of the International Space Station, as well as the Commercial Crew Program. Her work with the quadcopter also brought new challenges.
“We stuck with the areas we knew, but also worked in areas where we had no previous experience,” Fichuk said. “I did software, which was out of my realm. We collaborated with the other teams as well on some of the tougher issues we faced.”
Fichuk and her colleagues have been under the guidance of Romell Thomas, a first-class SSEDP program manager from Human Resources, since March 2013. The young professionals were versed in the principles of human spaceflight, applied space systems engineering, verification and validation—and even congressional operations as they developed their quadcopter designs.
“This is very much real world,” Thomas said of the format changes that embraced the flight project as part of the instruction. “We’ve received a lot of good feedback from our participants and others around the center who think it’s a really good idea. We definitely want to keep doing this.”
From left, Elizabeth Hayley, Michael Goza and Jonathan Bulseco coordinate and observe their quadcopter's progress. Image credit: NASA/Bill Stafford
A quadcopter navigates the treacherous terrain of the rock yard at Johnson Space Center. Image credit: NASA/Bill Stafford
From left to right: Gavin Mendeck, Andrew Clem, Sarah Waechter, Ashley Tarpley, Sotirios Liolios and Santana Cruz. Image credit: NASA/Bill Stafford
From left, Robert Howard and Romell Thomas affix a bulls-eye target for the quadcopter to deliver a small puck equipped with a radio-frequency identification chip. Image credit: NASA/Bill Stafford