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Courtney n5bf-at-amsat-dot-org most recent update 2009 November 24 earlier update 2005 July 14 |
My
Job Jet Propulsion Laboratory a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) run for NASA by California Institute of Technology (Caltech) I'm in the Tracking Systems and Applications organization where I work mostly on GRAIL GRAIL sends two spacecraft to the moon, like GRACE sent two spacecraft to the earth. The two spacecraft orbit close to their planet and measure the distance between themselves to microns (millionths of a meter) as they go. From this information the precise gravitational structure of the planet can be inferred. For GRACE at earth, the measurements are so precise that seasonal changes in the water table can be detected, along with other gravitational phenomena like mountain ranges and deep sea trenches. At the moon the goals are to study the crust and its history and (the "Holy Grail" of the mission, so to speak) see if we can deduce something about the solid/liquid composition of the moon's core. This data will be thousands of times better than the previous Apollo data, especially on the back side where Apollo had no direct tracking. Using a lot of cleverness, the mission spends a few months (instead of 3-1/2 days) to reach the moon, for a little less energy than the direct Apollo approach. It's supposed to arrive around New Year's Day of 2012 (the first craft on 12/31/11 and the second on 1/1/12) and do it's science in three one-month global mapping sessions. This knowledge will also improve future navigation of the moon (like by astronauts) from the kilometer level to a few meters, important if you want to land on, not merely "near" the landing pad. Also, I'm leading an effort to introduce JPL to the concept of small spacecraft. No, not small like a compact car, small like two or three liters. We have parntnered with SSDL at Stanford University to join a Cubesat and a small X-Band transponder payload for an earth orbit demonstration mission. Meanwhile, other people continue to work on explorations such as the Mars Exploration Rovers that are in the sixth year of a planned 90 day mission at two sites on Mars looking for signs of water or life, ancient or even modern. Anything that blocks the sun to these solar-powered robots could yet be their Achilles Heel. Mars Science Lab and Volkswagon Beetle sized nuclear powered Mars rover has just been delayed two years, causing consternation at JPL and all the way to the highest levels of government. The Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn 2004 June 30 with a perfect orbit insertion burn. My favorite is the navigation page with simulated views where you can see what Cassini sees and its current location in the Saturn System. I continue to follow with interests the exploits of the Space Frontier Foundation inspired space upstarts such as Space X, led by Elon Musk of PayPal fame. They finally got something all the way into orbit on their fourth try last year. Last fall I visited their Hawthorne facility as a potential customer for Dragonlab. There's also Scaled Composites that won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004 by flying the mass of three humans (including one real human) to over 100 km altitude in the same vehicle twice in two weeks. There was an accident at the plant in summer 2007 that has slowed them down some, but they are still working with Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic (also Virgin Atlantic) to take half a dozen paying customers ($200,000 a seat) over 100 kilometers into near-space for a few minutes of weightlessness and sightseeing. Elon, commenting on Burt, says that the SpaceShipOne / SpaceShipTwo type suborbital adventures only get 1.5% of the way to earth orbit, where any action really starts, earth orbit being half way to anywhere in the universe, by energy. My own calculation says 3% (just 2gh / v^2 for 100 km suborbital height and 8 km / second orbital speed) but who's quibbling? There is a (relatively friendly) tension between the government and private enterprise about all this. There is a perception that space flight is so complicated and expensive that only governments can do it and everyone has grown so used to this that the real perception is that only governments are allowed to do space flight. Without real competition, places like NASA end up thinking things like "Safety is Job One" is somehow a priority in the space exploration endeavor, incongruous as that sounds on the face of it. Sure, safety is important, but if we want to guarantee absolute safety of everybody everywhere, we wouldn't be fooling around with rockets and high explosives at all. Private enterprise, after many false starts and missed promises is finally getting off the ground, however. Their problem is that they need a paying market of some sort. True enough, NASA can ligthen up and just pay for things rather than doing them, as one example of how to "privatize", but that's still government money. After the big communications constellation bust last decade (Iridium, Globalstar, etc.) they (folks like the Space Frontier Foundation) are now thinking that space tourism is where the money might be. True enough, several people have shelled out $20 million to fly to space stations as private citizens, and there is a larger market for cheaper tickets. Would you pay $190K for a three minute sub-orbital flight after three days of training? Would you be surprised to learn that that's about what participation in an expedition to Mt. Everest costs? We call this private enterprise versus government thing "furry mammals scurrying around the feet of dinosaurs." Now we're in an economic ice age. Who knows what will happen? The tension is best summed up in the flight day quip, "SpaceShipOne, GovernmentZero" which, though a bit of a low blow, is indeed accurate. My own feeling is that I want somebody to explore space and get a real start moving people off the planet. Working as a builder and navigator of solar system robots at JPL, I still see plenty of personal action and contribute toward that goal. Recent Resume - Awards - Publications Examples of older work: GPS/MET Instrument Configuration - Here I designed a method for a GPS equipped satellite to schedule and perform its own atmospheric soundings of the GPS signals without ground intervention. Other space - GPS work involved conceiving, developing, and implementing techniques such as Single Antenna Attitude Determination.  This is my "Silver Snoopy".
Members of the STS-99 SRTM team (see "Resume"
above) were awarded these for ... well, for pulling it off.
Except for this radar, JPL usually has little to do with the Space
Shuttle or manned space flight. Shuttles occasionally land in
California, however. One day when I didn't realize this was
happening there was a double knock at the door. I got up and
answered to find no one there. Shuttle sonic boom on final into
Edwards....
The flowers are a dozen yellow roses that Viannah, on the occasion of her first paycheck from Von's grocery (a summer job) gave Viann, her mother, (2004 June 26). A "Silver Snoopy" is a high award at NASA, comparable to but even cooler than the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, “for leading the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission Global Positioning System design, development, test, and delivery task.” May 7, 2001 (the citation on mine), that some of us got for the same job. The "Silver Snoopy" was commissioned from Charles Schultz, creator of Peanuts, by the astronaut corps, is in limited supply, and must be presented in person by an astronaut. Mine was presented by John M. Grunsfeld who did not fly on SRTM. Rather, he happened to be the next astronaut to make a state visit to JPL after these particular awards were approved. Grunsfeld is famous as (maybe) the last astronaut to repair the Hubble Space Telescope (STS-109). That's Snoopy sitting by his box, the only time he's ever been out. (They warned us not to put these on e-bay, so don't ask.)  Here I am trying to put him back in his box. courtney dot duncan at ieee.org (c) Courtney Duncan 2005, 2007, 2009 |