Aerospace - Blog Posts
NASA Intern Bonus Update
Recently my coach from FIRST Robotics past visited me and we toured Johnson Space Center (JSC). We got a look into Building Nine where astronauts train for their missions in mock vehicles. There were shuttle, international space station, Orion, rover, and robotic mocks. I was so glad my mentor could visit, FIRST Robotics is a huge reason why I am here!
For photo descriptions see captions. All taken by me at JSC.
Links: FIRST Robotics My old HS team Duluth East Daredevils
This morning I asked International Space Station Program Science Office of astronauts can see 4th of July firework displays from space. They replied! *squee* and said that if the orbital mechanics are timed right they can see the flashes of fireworks. They included this message from Astronaut Scott Kelly too, enjoy!
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.
Launching Your Aerospace Career
As unbelievable as it seems my passion for aerospace and space research was not found until my senior year in high school. There are many programs I wish I had known about throughout my schooling and programs I still want to participate in the future. I hope this post open doors about ways you can launch your aerospace career and spark your imagination.
Elementary School
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Jr. LEGO League (Jr.FLL) Students ages 6 - 9 create an invention out of LEGO parts that solves real world problems.
FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Students ages 9 - 14 design, build, and program LEGO Robots that compete in a game. A really cool FLL team
VEX IQ Challenge Elementary - middle school students build controllable robots to complete tasks and compete.
Middle School
FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Students ages 9 - 14 design, build, and program LEGO Robots that compete in a game. A really cool FLL team
FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Students in grades 7 - 12 design, fabricate, wire, and program robots to compete in alliances. A really cool FTC team
VEX IQ Challenge Elementary - middle school students build controllable robots to complete tasks and compete.
VEX Robotics Competition With skills in computer aided design, programming, animation, and fabrication middle school - college students build robots and compete on alliances of 2 V 2 to achieve reach the top score.
High School
FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Students in grades 7 - 12 design, fabricate, wire, and program robots to compete in alliances. A really cool FTC team
FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) In only six weeks high school students from around the world design and build 120 lb robots to play games such as soccer, basketball, and Ultimate Frisbee. I captained an FRC team in high school and can vouch that all the FIRST robotics leagues (JrFLL - FRC) are fantastic! My old high school's FRC team
Texas High School Aerospace Scholars High school students from Texas get to collaborate with NASA engineers onsite to complete a week long project and work among fellow scholars.
VEX Robotics Competition With skills in computer aided design, programming, animation, and fabrication middle school - college students build robots and compete on alliances of 2 V 2 to achieve reach the top score.
Glenn High School Internship Project (GHIP) Eight week paid internship for high schoolers to work at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. This opportunity is for incoming juniors and seniors.
K - 12
Science, Engineering, Mathematics, and Aerospace Academy (SEMAA) Summer filled with innovation offering activities for all Contact
Destination Imagination Improv to engineering, art to teamwork students compete from around the world in many disciplines.
College
NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars (NCAS) Community college students get onsite and online NASA experience and education.
VEX Robotics Competition With skills in computer aided design, programming, animation, and fabrication middle school - college students build robots and compete on alliances of 2 V 2 to achieve reach the top score.
NASA College Internships Paid internships at NASA available for year round and every season at the various NASA centers.
NASA Pathways Internship (College Co-Op) Now the OSSI internships are different than what NASA calls Pathways Internships (more commonly known as Co-Ops) where you are a civil servant with higher pay and benefits. You also go on “tours” (at least 3) where you switch between a semester working and NASA and a semester studying three times.
All Ages and Disciplines
Alphabetical order list of NASA programs for all ages and disciplines.
*My earlier posts explain FIRST Robotics better* **Next post, as a woman in STEM, I will focus on resources for women in STEM!**
(TopL: NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars Credit: NASA, TopR: Jr. LEGO League creation Credit:FIRST FLL, Middle: Me lining up my high school robotics team’s basketball shooting robot Credit: Daredevils FRC Robotics Team 2512, BottomL: LEGO Mindstorm robot Credit: LEGO, BottomR: In a parade with NASA Glenn and their Orion float.)
Intern Week 3: Graveyard Shift
Why am I at NASA at 2am? (Like what, thought that was a SpaceX thing.) Us interns have the graveyard shift to thermo test cameras for the ISS. This means that we are making the cameras really cold and really hot to see if they can withstand conditions in space. The cameras are just really high class HD Nikon cameras in custom housing and 3D printed lenses. The astronauts will use these to show ground what they are working on in space and zoom in on fine details to show damages. We record time and temperatures and the test lead does operational testing to see if the cameras still give back an image. Such a cool experience to assist in testing equipment that will actually go to space. The bottom picture is me next to the thermo test chamber.
The top picture is me in front of a motion/ zero gravity chamber that the astronauts trained in that needed to be decommissioned.
The goober next to me in the Orion mock is Caleb and he has a sick blog: astronomicalwonders
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!
Mangalyaan ("Mars-craft") | Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM)
Destination: Mars
India is now well on its way to having an interplanetary presence. The country has successfully launched the Mars Orbiter Mission, a reconnaissance satellite that will orbit the Martian atmosphere for elusive chemicals.
The integration of the five scientific instruments was completed at ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore, and the finished spacecraft was successfully launched from Sriharikotta on 5 November 2013.
India's space agency would be just the fourth to reach the planet -- a symbolic win over countries like China, whose interplanetary missions have fallen short.
boeing 787 | dreamliner
The boring 787 Dreamliner is a commercial jet from Boeing, it’s the most fuel-efficient airliner in the planet and is with composite materials—specifically, carbon fiber reinforcement plastic. According to Boeing, it’s made of 80% composite by volume, making it the lightest aeroairplane in its class. It also includes “nice” passenger favorable like: bigger windows, noise reduction (quieter), and oh, more space. So, I don’t see how this is a revolutionary aircraft, rather, I see it as an evolutionary aircraft.
So what’s the problem? Well, this is the thing: the Dreamliner has been plagued with accreting problems. In layman’s term, its battery can easily catch on fire. So axiomatically you know this is serious; hence, this is why the FAA grounded all 787s late last year (2012) shortly after service by many airlines around the world.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner completely relies on electrical power than any other previous plane. Commercial jet airlines – other than the 787 – uses bleed air, which is super-hot, super-pressurized air taken from within the engine, and used it for all kinds of functions, from de-icing to pressurizing the cabin itself. However, this greatly reduces the efficiency of the engine. In order to prevent this loss in efficiency, the Dreamliner relies solely on electrical power, from some hyper-high-capacity lithium ion batteries. So, the problem is – these batteries have a rapture catching on fire and create angst in Boeing employees.
The famous lithium ion is chosen because it's got a super-high energy content for its size and weight – like, twice that of the batteries (lead-acid battery) used in electric cars – but it also has one huge problem. That would be heat. Although there are different kinds of lithium ion batteries, the Dreamliner uses cobalt oxide batteries, the same kind as what's used in smartphones, laptops, and tablets. So, obviously the batteries on your phone don’t catch on fire; this is because they are small. However, the batteries on the 787s are huge and have the tendency to catch on fire.
I was pondering like you too on why Boeing engineers didn’t find this issue during the preliminary testing stage. So here is why: The Dreamliner has had a very, very long and tumultuous birthing process, with multiple redesigns over the years. The 787 has been several years, yes years, behind schedule for deliveries. But theses delays were not directly related to the batteries catching fire. According to Boeing, nobody knowshow this problem got by.
A good guess for this – “just got by” – would be that with such a newfangled electrical power system, nobody really knew how the Dreamliner would respond with repeated use.
Anyway, after three months, today (Apr 19, 2013) FAA approved the Boeing’s plans to fix the 787’s batteries, a decision that could allow the planes to return to service within weeks. The decision was a major milestone for Boeing and its innovative jet.
This post is already long enough, so, I’m not writing what the Boeing’s fix is for 787’s power system.
SpaceX's Grasshopper Rocket
SpaceX's Grasshopper Rocket beautifully perfectly Hovers!
In this recent test, the Grasshopper vertically took-off, ascended to about 12 stories, hovered for few seconds and then deliberately landed back down.
And of course, it's indeed meant to go much, much higher (to space) but progress is progress.
Careers I have considered
DREAM JOB:
Professional writer. Like Popular Science writer. Or a blogger.
Biologist. Improving humans via augmentations. Saving the world from cancer, etc.
National Geographic photographer. Partly because of this amazing video.
Industrial designer. Like Sir Jonathan Ive. Still one of my dream job. When I retire, I want to buy a giant 3-D printing machine. I’ll dream up designs in AutoCAD, and I’ll create whatever I want.
Navy SEAL. Scuba-diving, snorkeling, and stealthy missions via submarines are really fun. Not so keen on the enduring-unimaginable-hardship part.
Starving artist. Doesn’t sound so bad, except for the starving part.
Graphic designer. Saving the Gotham City from DC Comics.
Computer scientist. Maybe if I take Computational Mathematics, I could combine this with my love of Aerospace.
Interestingly, I’ve never felt any desire to become a doctor. I guess I lack that section of the Indian genome.
However, I got the 'engineer' section, as I'm studying to become a Rocket scientist. Like Tony Stark (if you're wondering, he's Iron Man.
I apologize in advance for these cursed Journey Into Mystery cover edits.😅 Came up with the idea after visiting a space museum. I didn't know that there was a Loki rocket until then!
To learn more about these neat li'l guys: Thor ballistic missile Loki-Dart sounding rocket Odin-SMR minisatellite