MichSpace

If you are a student at UM, you know last Thursday we had a special speaker come to campus: "Reverend" Rick Tumlinson. If you want to learn more about Rick please go to the wikipedia article. I definitely went into this talk with high expectations, tried to push through my lab that evening faster than normal (not just for the free food). I'm pleased to say that for what I was expecting, I came away very impressed with his talk, and it will definitely be one that stays with me for a while.

Everyone always says you have to balance talks from visionaries, which I definitely consider Rick, with your own knowledge. This is true, but it never hurts to dream big and that's exactly what the Reverend was trying to impress on those in attendance. Buried underneath all of the optimistic views and his thoughts on the human potential, the one thing that truly came through in his talk was just how much he cared about space. It was pretty incredible for me, I've never seen anyone over 30 who was so dedicated to spreading awareness of space and what we can do in it. This is the motivation that all in the industry should keep with them for as long as they can, whether they be in a large corporation, a smaller firm, or most likely their own start-up.

Another thing that stood out to me was Tumlinson's desire to stay connected with the audience. It was the collection of small things that kept me focused on what he had to say, whether it was making a Battlestar Galactica reference casually in passing, or the excellent track selection he hand-picked for that night. He definitely felt more in tune with the younger audience that was there than many speakers I've seen in the past.

Bottom line: I really liked this talk, it's great to have those moments in your life when you are re-inspired about what you do, and this was one of those nights. I felt like I had to go back to my hometown and give a speech at my high school with some of the phrases and points he used. Keep going Reverend, I can safely say that the space industry is better because of your involvement in it.

-Michael

[A little bit of background, Brice Russ is the Assistant Director of Yuri's Night - the national Yuri's Night - and chair of the Social Media Committee at National Space Society. He's studying linguistics at Ohio State University, and other than his choice of schools is a pretty good guy by my account. I met him while at the University of Illinois last fall for the Space Vision Conference. Sweet. --The Harv]



You could make the case that right now is the most exciting time in a generation to be young and interested in space. The Space Shuttle is preparing for its final flights, soon to be replaced by a new era of launch technology. "NewSpace" companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic are lowering launch costs, paving the way for large-scale space exploration. Incentive competitions such as the Google Lunar X PRIZE are both spurring research and development and creating dozens of new groups for young graduates to bring their skills to.

These are indeed heady times for the young and starry-eyed (of which, incidentally, your author counts himself as one), and these future space leaders aren't just sitting in class, waiting to join in. At college campuses and high schools around the world, students are actively preparing for a future in space, using weather balloons to photograph the curvature of the earth, engaging in rocketry competitions, and even designing orbital space settlements. Read more at ars technica...

A Canadian company, Microsat Systems Canada Inc., is developing a 78 satellite constellation for high-speed internet access called CommStellation. Most of the less-developed world lacks the infrastructure to support internet access so this system would grant those with the means access. This problem has been tackled by many different companies and organizations (Strato for AOSS 582/583 is working on something similar right now!). The satellites will be placed in 6 orbital planes in LEO. Best of luck to them!

Diffuse Gas Explosive Erosion - I worked on the Mars Phoenix Lander data analysis with Manish as part of an ENG 450 project in BSE +1. Yes, I'm that old. It has been little more than a year since I met Manish and Professor Renno, but it's amazing how far I have come since then. For one, I have Manish's desk and have started recruiting ENG 450 students of my own. My, how the tables have turned!

Phoenix Lander blasts away Martian dirt, uncovers new way to dig
By Kunio M. Sayanagi

Scientists continue to analyze the data returned by the Phoenix mission to Mars. On May 25th, 2008, when Phoenix touched down on Mars, the lander’s thrusters blasted away as much as 18cm of Martian soil underneath the probe and exposed a layer of ice. While the discovery of the subsurface ice generated a great deal of excitement, some scientists were puzzled, because Phoenix’s relatively weak rocket engines, with 30 percent less total thrust than those of the Viking Mars Landers in the '70s, shouldn’t have excavated that much dirt.

In a new study led by Manish Mehta of the University of Michigan, scientists recreated Mars-like conditions in a laboratory to understand what happened when Phoenix landed. Their study led to a discovery of a new phenomenon in which a rocket plume excavates underlying soil explosively. It was published in this month’s issue of planetary science journal Icarus.

Read more at ars technica

Space can really suck sometimes...

I mean this in a good way though, because we can't get better at designing stuff that goes into space unless we have problems along the way, right? As the Project Manager for the M-Cubed CubeSat at Michigan, I've seen the project grow from the beginning. All the great times where we nail a presentation, hit a technical milestone, or get selected to be launched into space (huttah!). But for every good thing that happens, there are at least five problems that had to be overcome, and that's just the way it is.

For those of you that don't know, M-Cubed is the Michigan Multipurpose Minisatellite. At the time we chose the acronym,we had no idea that JPL also had an M-Cubed of their own (I swear! - see here). The Michigan M-Cubed is a 1U CubeSat that will be building off of the success of the RAX CubeSat developed at UM to build more capability and expertise into the Michigan Nanosat Pipeline. M-Cubed is (coincidentally) collaborating with JPL as a technology demonstration for components and algorithms that will be used on the second ACE mission. The team is very excited about this collaboration, and it is why we will be launching our little cube into the first fairly elliptical orbit for CubeSats this coming fall!

The team has been working hard lately to build our Engineering Unit (the one we can push until it breaks) in preparation for our environmental testing. We've had a number of issues crop up lately that are causing headaches around the team, most notably we have had some problems securing the proper vibe facilities to perform this testing. But the good news is that we have the payload from JPL in house now and are performing integrated testing with it! We just recently performed a fit check with all of our boards and the JPL payload and everything fits nicely (see picture).

Granted, we're not where we need to be yet, ribbon cables are bending too much, we need to find better connectors, and some of the circuit boards need some revision, but overall we're happy to have gotten to this point. As I said before, we learn more when we encounter tough engineering (and sometimes logistical) problems. All the experience we're gaining as a team from these current problems will save us time when we build our flight unit, and when all of us get into industry (hopefully).

-Michael

For all you history buffs out there, http://spacelog.org has you covered. Recently NASA has been releasing transcripts from their early missions. Currently, you can read the Apollo 13 ('Houston, we have a problem') and Mercury 6 (John Glenn became the first American to reach Earth orbit) transcripts. The format itself is pretty cool. They don't just throw the transcript out there, they have a play-by-play of who's saying what. They are working on adding more missions... in fact, they're looking for more people to help them digitize!