MichSpace

Take a look at some beautiful pictures of the dark spacial abyss here.

The future of commercialized space by Virgin Galactic!

$200,000 a ticket. Not bad.

Ladies & Gentlemen,

I give you,

I've recently had the opportunity to work on a project with students from the law school and business school. The project focuses on building a business plan pitch for Venture Capitol Funding. I'm lucky enough to be able to actually work on the VC pitch with the NanoSat technology we're developing!

So the Boston Globe has begun a "Big Picture" page on their website - they describe it as "News Stories in Pictures". Not a bad idea, I suppose.

The comment section has been enabled now! If you are reading this, feel free to comment!

Alas, a Leads meeting.

These are different from the general meetings obviously, because only the leads of the various aspects of M-Cubed come in. They talk about progress. They make jokes. They laugh. They are stressed. It's intense, but nobody dares to say it. There is a lot of work ahead.

Each lead reports on the progress they've made. This is where it gets technical. Extremely technical. Technical to the point where you sit there, fidgeting in your seat, hoping that they'll start talking about something else that is not so . . . technical. Unfortunately, that does not happen.

So here's a general synopsis. "Sphereoscity" is important so don't throw it off. The camera is being assessed. The vibe tests are essential, because if it can't survive take off, then what can it survive?

There is more but I can't decipher my notes. I need to learn how to speak engineer.

I went to a High Altitude Solutions meeting last night! This time, I know what it stands for. Essentially, they launch a huge helium balloon into high altitudes to simulate space like conditions.

Most of the meeting was focused on the dramatic situation at hand! As it happened, on Sunday, HAS launched their balloon. At around 31,000 ft, they lost it! All three communication systems failed and the "kill" switch malfunctioned! The "kill" switch, which is also called the Flight Termination Unit, cuts the line and drops the payload (which is the camera, I presume) back to the ground. After the failure and loss of contact, extensive rescue measures were then put into play! The team was hopping on planes and calling the FAA on their frantic search for their lost data. However, Sunday night did not end well for them as they could not recover the stray balloon.

Balloon recovery, surprisingly enough, is the most painstaking, and perhaps most entertaining, aspect of these situations as it is difficult to predict where the payload (attached to a parachute) will land. Stories of landing in bodies of water and prison grounds are not unheard of -- especially with these guys!

Luckily, Monday brought better news as a kind farmer named Annette found the balloon in her yard and was gracious enough to call HAS and inform them that she recovered it.

Thank goodness for good Samaritans.

Here's a cool HAS video!

CDM stands for Concurrent Design Meeting. This was the MCubed team's first meeting for Fall 2009. All the MCubed sub-system leads were present to discuss, and come to a consensus, on how best to select a camera that will fulfill the mission objective. By the by, what's MCubed? It's a student lead initiative under the student group S3FL at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor to build, test, and launch a satellite which has a very specific objective - take a picture of a particular location from space and beam it back down. Sounds simple doesn't it...well, it's far from simple; of that, I can assure you.

The meeting was very very very very technical. The issue facing the MCubed team at the moment - well, at any rate, the issue of critical importance - is selecting a camera that will 'talk' to a sensor without any hitches and at the same time, survive the harsh conditions of space. And the fact that the launch date is fast approaching makes time a luxury that the team cannot afford!!

Once the meeting was underway, the leads did a good job of addressing every tiny detail - the back and forth between them was substantial. A lot of discussion was held over issues such as whether or not the selected camera would be able to sync with the sensor, whether the selection of a camera necessitates that the dimensions of the carrier satellite be altered and whether FPGA board would be a better choice for integration with the camera. The sensor is basically the 'black box' that analysis the data (in the case of a camera, this data is a picture taken by the camera).

Why all the hub-bub over a measly camera?? because the camera will decide whether all the effort that has gone into this project; under the able leadership of Kiril Dontchev, Michael Heywood, Rafael Ramos and the other sub-system team leads; will come to fruition . So, YES...the camera IS the pièce de résistance. And if the mission objective is met, you can bet the local pubs will see a lot of celebrations. (The project managers have promised to get drunk!)

Yesterday was my first CDM meeting. I still have no idea what it stands for, but at this point, it really doesn't matter. The whole concept is new to me. It's foreign and innovative and industrial and raw. And despite my vast lack of knowledge on the subject, I still find it to be incredibly fascinating.

It's an M-Cubed meeting. They build things that go into space. It took a discussion-like structure. Concepts were being presented and group members put in their input.

The main topic of discussion for last night was "Payload Camera Selection and Interfacing Overview". Such big words.

It's the camera. The camera is important. It's the payload. The pièce de résistance. The camera has to take, process, and download pictures from a dinky metal cube that it will be built into. You attach the cube onto a spacecraft and there it goes on its out-of-the-world endeavor.

The meeting is intense but relaxed. It's serious but informal. The words are big and confusing but you understand what is going on because you have to understand what is going on. There are project managers and payload teams. Something big is going on here. There's an insane time crunch.

"You have until next semester to this this."
"How confident are you that you can do that?"

The camera has to survive. And what about the sensors? Don't forget to expose it to extreme heat. Don't forget to expose it to extreme cold. Don't forget expose it to nothing. Put it in a vacuum. Remove it from existence.

There are chips and metal and circuitry and students involved. There's something about FPJs and something about USBs. You have so many questions and concerns that you are concerned when you don't have a concern. You've been doing this for years but it's still new and exhilarating to you. You're excited and you're scared and you want to run out of the room in frustration and at the same time you want to sit in the room in calm.

But that's the charm.

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What Future for NASA? § SEEDMAGAZINE.COM

All systems are go.

Not really.