1 00:00:08,410 --> 00:00:13,690 Today we have an old colleague and friend of mine. 2 00:00:13,690 --> 00:00:20,690 Tony Lavoie actually got his engineering degree in the Aero-Astro Department here at MIT, 3 00:00:23,270 --> 00:00:25,500 so this is coming back home for him. 4 00:00:25,500 --> 00:00:29,390 And he actually grew up in Massachusetts. 5 00:00:29,390 --> 00:00:36,390 But, for the last 23 years, he has been in Huntsville, Alabama at the Marshall Space 6 00:00:37,680 --> 00:00:44,680 Flight Center and actually has been an engineer on quite a few of the projects that I have 7 00:00:45,510 --> 00:00:51,829 flown with, including the Astro Observatory and the Tethered Satellite. 8 00:00:51,829 --> 00:00:58,829 And Tony has continued to rise up in the ranks of the NASA engineering community. 9 00:01:00,510 --> 00:01:07,510 He is now, I guess, the Project Manager for the Robotic Lunar Exploration Program. 10 00:01:09,149 --> 00:01:16,149 If you have been following the space news, Marshall Space Flight Center is going to be 11 00:01:16,220 --> 00:01:22,270 developing the first robotic lunar lander that we have ever sent to the Moon since Surveyor. 12 00:01:22,270 --> 00:01:26,459 It will be like 40 years, I guess, we haven't done that. 13 00:01:26,459 --> 00:01:27,910 And we are going to have to figure out how to do it. 14 00:01:27,910 --> 00:01:34,910 Tony was also the Chief Engineer on the Chandra X-Ray Observatory which was launched on the 15 00:01:38,060 --> 00:01:38,780 Shuttle. 16 00:01:38,780 --> 00:01:44,630 And so, I thought it would be interesting to hear, since we've been looking at many 17 00:01:44,630 --> 00:01:50,630 other aspects of Space Shuttle operations, to hear something about what it was like getting 18 00:01:50,630 --> 00:01:52,520 a payload ready to fly on the Shuttle. 19 00:01:52,520 --> 00:01:59,520 But also we were discussing, before class began, that he may have some comments on the 20 00:01:59,970 --> 00:02:05,450 Robotic Lunar Exploration Program, which is now in the pre-phase A studies. 21 00:02:05,450 --> 00:02:07,729 And it will sort of be interesting. 22 00:02:07,729 --> 00:02:14,200 We talked a lot about what it was like in the pre-phase A and the early days of coming 23 00:02:14,200 --> 00:02:17,530 up with the requirements for the Shuttle. 24 00:02:17,530 --> 00:02:24,530 And clearly, in the systems engineering, getting the requirements right is one of the key goals 25 00:02:24,890 --> 00:02:25,500 for success. 26 00:02:25,500 --> 00:02:29,320 Tony may have some comments on that. 27 00:02:29,320 --> 00:02:30,700 I have talked enough. 28 00:02:30,700 --> 00:02:35,280 Tony, you've got it. 29 00:02:35,280 --> 00:02:35,620 Hi there. 30 00:02:35,620 --> 00:02:38,250 We are going to start talking about Chandra. 31 00:02:38,250 --> 00:02:44,400 And, as Jeff pointed out, I am also going to talk about my new challenge, my new assignment 32 00:02:44,400 --> 00:02:50,670 as Project Manager and in pre-phase A what that means. 33 00:02:50,670 --> 00:02:56,040 And I think it is a lot different, being a student, where you have a single closed form 34 00:02:56,040 --> 00:02:59,079 solution and you go and you work a problem and it is done. 35 00:02:59,079 --> 00:03:04,960 In the real world you seldom, if ever, work a problem one time and have it finish. 36 00:03:04,960 --> 00:03:11,790 And we will get into that as we go along. 37 00:03:11,790 --> 00:03:14,370 I am going to talk about Chandra X-Ray Observatory. 38 00:03:14,370 --> 00:03:20,930 And these are just a few images that Chandra has produced. 39 00:03:20,930 --> 00:03:27,930 It is an outstanding x-ray imager, and it has been flying since July of '99. 40 00:03:30,170 --> 00:03:36,440 And you are going to get all the gory details and all the lessons learned that we had in 41 00:03:36,440 --> 00:03:38,010 working that project. 42 00:03:38,010 --> 00:03:45,010 I will do an overview Chandra history and then the challenges we faced and lessons learned 43 00:03:47,980 --> 00:03:52,370 associated with that, and we will cover those topics. 44 00:03:52,370 --> 00:03:55,870 In terms of how we operate, feel free to ask questions as we go along. 45 00:03:55,870 --> 00:03:58,569 It is kind of lose and easy. 46 00:03:58,569 --> 00:04:05,569 Chandra, or back then it was AXAF, Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics Facility. 47 00:04:08,990 --> 00:04:10,709 NASA, by the way, loves acronyms. 48 00:04:10,709 --> 00:04:17,709 I mean, if you are interested in working with NASA or associated with NASA, they are just 49 00:04:20,029 --> 00:04:20,839 acronym crazy. 50 00:04:20,839 --> 00:04:25,590 AXAF was one of the four great observatories. 51 00:04:25,590 --> 00:04:32,590 The four great observatories were meant to cover as close to the entire spectrum as NASA 52 00:04:34,220 --> 00:04:35,130 could. 53 00:04:35,130 --> 00:04:39,520 And so, the visible great observatory is Hubble. 54 00:04:39,520 --> 00:04:43,430 And Ultraviolet, that's true, little Ultraviolet. 55 00:04:43,430 --> 00:04:48,960 The X-Ray Observatory is AXAF, which was later named Chandra. 56 00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:55,960 The Gamma Ray Observatory is the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. 57 00:04:57,990 --> 00:05:01,430 And the last one was Infrared. 58 00:05:01,430 --> 00:05:04,470 And that originally started off as SIRTF. 59 00:05:04,470 --> 00:05:08,490 And now it is Spitzer. 60 00:05:08,490 --> 00:05:14,250 And that was launched a few years ago. 61 00:05:14,250 --> 00:05:21,250 In each of the four great observatories, they were higher class than most of the other science 62 00:05:24,120 --> 00:05:28,310 missions, even the science telescopes. 63 00:05:28,310 --> 00:05:31,100 And NASA did invest quite a bit of money on each of those. 64 00:05:31,100 --> 00:05:37,250 And so, you will see that the performance from the four great observatories are, in 65 00:05:37,250 --> 00:05:42,560 terms of quality, probably the best in the world and the best NASA has ever done. 66 00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:49,560 For the x-ray region, Chandra or AXAF was built. 67 00:05:50,199 --> 00:05:55,449 And its objective, you start with program objectives and you work down with science 68 00:05:55,449 --> 00:05:55,699 objectives. 69 00:05:55,659 --> 00:06:02,660 The science objectives were really to understand the nature of the universe and determine the 70 00:06:03,810 --> 00:06:07,889 nature of celestial objects, in particular those that are hot. 71 00:06:07,889 --> 00:06:10,560 And hot objects will produce x-rays. 72 00:06:10,560 --> 00:06:13,260 And, of course, Jeff knows all about that. 73 00:06:13,260 --> 00:06:17,240 If you have any questions related to that you can ask Jeff. 74 00:06:17,240 --> 00:06:24,240 But, from an engineer perspective, what happens is you are given a set of objects and maybe 75 00:06:25,060 --> 00:06:31,120 a program objective, and now you have to craft the mission and craft the project from those. 76 00:06:31,120 --> 00:06:38,120 And one of the problems that you face is that sometimes they are not crisp and sometimes 77 00:06:41,070 --> 00:06:45,620 they are flexible based on cost. 78 00:06:45,620 --> 00:06:49,540 And also sometimes they are not very specific. 79 00:06:49,540 --> 00:06:54,500 Like determine the nature of celestial objects from stars to quasars. 80 00:06:54,500 --> 00:06:54,820 Now what? 81 00:06:54,820 --> 00:07:00,520 But this is the kind of thing that typically you start with. 82 00:07:00,520 --> 00:07:04,650 And you have to iterate with, in this case, the science community. 83 00:07:04,650 --> 00:07:09,169 If you are building part of the Shuttle, you have to iterate with, for instance, the users, 84 00:07:09,169 --> 00:07:16,169 the astronauts, the payload developers that would use the Shuttle, the operators, et cetera. 85 00:07:16,759 --> 00:07:18,490 But the process is the same. 86 00:07:18,490 --> 00:07:22,180 You start with the top level objectives and you work your way down. 87 00:07:22,180 --> 00:07:26,259 Now, again, because of the nature of what we are talking about, it is usually a very 88 00:07:26,259 --> 00:07:30,479 iterative process that can last for several months. 89 00:07:30,479 --> 00:07:37,479 And even several years if there is a technical challenge that causes you to stretch out. 90 00:07:40,150 --> 00:07:46,300 And I will mention when it started. 91 00:07:46,300 --> 00:07:53,300 In terms of AXAF, kind of the key parameters are the percent in circled energy, i.e., how 92 00:07:54,789 --> 00:07:58,340 sharp is the image? 93 00:07:58,340 --> 00:08:00,590 Registration meaning where is the target in the sky? 94 00:08:00,590 --> 00:08:06,110 And you have got to remember that x-ray astronomy is a relatively new branch of astronomy. 95 00:08:06,110 --> 00:08:08,110 Because of the atmosphere it absorbs x-rays. 96 00:08:08,110 --> 00:08:15,110 So we, humans, only discovered x-ray astronomy in the last 40 years. 97 00:08:16,360 --> 00:08:22,580 We need to go outside the atmosphere to get information on x-ray astronomy. 98 00:08:22,580 --> 00:08:28,860 One of the things that we did know is if there are some x-ray sources there they may or may 99 00:08:28,860 --> 00:08:34,139 not be the same sources that also emit invisible light. 100 00:08:34,139 --> 00:08:39,459 And, if they are not, then you have a question of you kind of know there is a source out 101 00:08:39,459 --> 00:08:42,838 there, but you don't know where in the sky it is. 102 00:08:42,838 --> 00:08:49,569 And so, one of the challenges that AXAF had was even if I have no stars around this x-ray 103 00:08:49,569 --> 00:08:54,059 source, I have got to be able to pinpoint where that x-ray source is. 104 00:08:54,059 --> 00:08:58,999 That was a particular challenge that we had, trying to figure out how to do that. 105 00:08:58,999 --> 00:09:01,949 And that is what registration means. 106 00:09:01,949 --> 00:09:07,879 And then effective area is related to how many photons you can collect to make a good 107 00:09:07,879 --> 00:09:09,199 image. 108 00:09:09,199 --> 00:09:13,929 And recognize that if you are looking at the sun, the sun is very close so you can get 109 00:09:13,929 --> 00:09:17,920 a lot of photons, but if you are looking at something that is ten billion light-years 110 00:09:17,920 --> 00:09:24,889 away you are not collecting very many photons so you have to wait a long time to get those 111 00:09:24,889 --> 00:09:28,339 photons, unless you have a big collecting area. 112 00:09:28,339 --> 00:09:33,439 Those are kind of the key performance requirements that you have to address when you are building 113 00:09:33,439 --> 00:09:37,490 an x-ray telescope. 114 00:09:37,490 --> 00:09:44,490 From those there are key derived requirements that have to be derived basically to be able 115 00:09:47,649 --> 00:09:52,209 to maximize the scientific performance requirements. 116 00:09:52,209 --> 00:09:59,209 And so, from these pieces of information, you derive mirror size and design, you derive 117 00:09:59,429 --> 00:10:01,360 focal length. 118 00:10:01,360 --> 00:10:05,459 Pointing and control requirements, how accurately do you need to point? 119 00:10:05,459 --> 00:10:12,459 Thermal stability because that plays a role in orbit, a very big role. 120 00:10:12,499 --> 00:10:17,660 Instrument sensitivity and the fiducial transfer system, which I will talk about later, which 121 00:10:17,660 --> 00:10:24,660 is the thing that allows you to do the registration, even the absence of local visible stars around 122 00:10:25,119 --> 00:10:26,649 it. 123 00:10:26,649 --> 00:10:32,579 Once you have the bulk of the science performance requirements and the derived requirements 124 00:10:32,579 --> 00:10:38,290 from these performance requirements then you fill in kind of the rest of the pie, if you 125 00:10:38,290 --> 00:10:40,499 will. 126 00:10:40,499 --> 00:10:47,499 And those can be safety requirements in the case of a manned program. 127 00:10:47,579 --> 00:10:50,499 In fact, that is pretty significant. 128 00:10:50,499 --> 00:10:55,429 And it is a pretty significant cost driver for things that fly in space. 129 00:10:55,429 --> 00:11:01,920 Unfortunately, they also cost a lot to make sure they are not a hazard to the crew that 130 00:11:01,920 --> 00:11:03,569 flies. 131 00:11:03,569 --> 00:11:10,569 There are also design and construction standards, which also turns out to be a big deal. 132 00:11:13,239 --> 00:11:19,730 For instance, if you are building a satellite and you have circuit cards, you are going 133 00:11:19,730 --> 00:11:25,239 to have requirements on soldering, you are going to have requirements on integrated circuits, 134 00:11:25,239 --> 00:11:30,139 you are going to have requirements on glazing, you are going to have requirements on bonding. 135 00:11:30,139 --> 00:11:35,360 You are going to have requirements on how to do things across the whole gamut of the 136 00:11:35,360 --> 00:11:35,610 spacecraft. Not just the spacecraft but also the Shuttle and anything that flies up there. 137 00:11:40,689 --> 00:11:47,689 For a given mission, there are probably on the order of 100, 150 separate documents that 138 00:11:51,449 --> 00:11:57,589 describe various things, design and construction standards that you have to go through for 139 00:11:57,589 --> 00:12:02,519 a particular piece of building the vehicle. 140 00:12:02,519 --> 00:12:08,089 And so, those things are always a challenge for a project manager because the engineers 141 00:12:08,089 --> 00:12:14,249 want to get the latest standard that applies, and in excruciating detail as engineers love 142 00:12:14,249 --> 00:12:15,089 to do. 143 00:12:15,089 --> 00:12:20,559 And yet, from the project manger's standpoint, we are trying to maintain cost. 144 00:12:20,559 --> 00:12:26,559 There is always a tradeoff between how good is good enough? 145 00:12:26,559 --> 00:12:31,839 From a program manager's perspective better is the enemy of good. 146 00:12:31,839 --> 00:12:38,839 Yet, from an engineer, good is always better, or better is always better. 147 00:12:39,179 --> 00:12:45,819 There is always a healthy tension between the project manager and the engineers. 148 00:12:45,819 --> 00:12:51,499 And I would say that a successful project knows how to tradeoff. 149 00:12:51,499 --> 00:12:57,369 The project manager and the engineers know how to balance that tension to be able to 150 00:12:57,369 --> 00:13:00,290 get the best product. 151 00:13:00,290 --> 00:13:05,549 And we have done that before, and we have also imbalanced it and had some spectacular 152 00:13:05,549 --> 00:13:08,579 failures. 153 00:13:08,579 --> 00:13:15,579 Once requirements are set then you can start kind of designing and starting to put the 154 00:13:18,569 --> 00:13:22,589 drawings on developing the system, if you will. 155 00:13:22,589 --> 00:13:29,589 But that is kind of the general flow of information for a science payload or a science mission. 156 00:13:30,189 --> 00:13:35,730 You start with the top level requirements for performance, the scientific performance 157 00:13:35,730 --> 00:13:38,299 that you are looking for. 158 00:13:38,299 --> 00:13:45,299 From those you derive the direct performance requirements, like what you see here, and 159 00:13:45,779 --> 00:13:48,609 then everything else cascades below that. 160 00:13:48,609 --> 00:13:55,609 And, once you have the requirements set, then you can start developing concepts. 161 00:13:56,339 --> 00:14:00,459 Now, this was a preliminary design of AXAF. 162 00:14:00,459 --> 00:14:07,459 I am not going to talk about it, but I am just going to show the next slide as to what 163 00:14:08,109 --> 00:14:10,559 it looks like now. 164 00:14:10,559 --> 00:14:17,559 And so, you can see that there is a major difference between what it started out as 165 00:14:18,519 --> 00:14:20,829 and what it ended up as. 166 00:14:20,829 --> 00:14:21,670 And this is typical. 167 00:14:21,670 --> 00:14:23,559 It is not atypical. 168 00:14:23,559 --> 00:14:25,730 And the reason is cost. 169 00:14:25,730 --> 00:14:32,259 A lot of times when you are first starting out with requirements, you kind of don't know 170 00:14:32,259 --> 00:14:34,809 what the cost of the mission is going to be. 171 00:14:34,809 --> 00:14:39,329 And so, you come up with an idea that has a lot of capability. 172 00:14:39,329 --> 00:14:46,329 This was orbit serviceable, it was in low earth orbit, and it had four focal plane instruments 173 00:14:48,079 --> 00:14:49,279 that you could select. 174 00:14:49,279 --> 00:14:53,230 And it would actually move, much like Hubble. 175 00:14:53,230 --> 00:15:00,230 And it was a 15 year mission with reservicing with the shuttle astronauts. 176 00:15:00,369 --> 00:15:07,339 But, when you start putting that on paper and you start crafting the requirements, one 177 00:15:07,339 --> 00:15:12,999 of the things you do, in the early phase of a program, is you also cost, or you try and 178 00:15:12,999 --> 00:15:18,579 cost what those requirements result in, in terms of design. 179 00:15:18,579 --> 00:15:22,529 Even though you don't do the final design or you don't start working on the design in 180 00:15:22,529 --> 00:15:29,119 detail until after you've got the requirements set, in practical terms you have to still 181 00:15:29,119 --> 00:15:33,009 put together a concept design so that you can cost it. 182 00:15:33,009 --> 00:15:35,649 And that is exactly what happened on AXAF. 183 00:15:35,649 --> 00:15:42,649 We put together a design in parallel with working the requirements and we costed the 184 00:15:42,949 --> 00:15:45,149 design. 185 00:15:45,149 --> 00:15:48,619 And it turned out that that was more money than NASA could afford. 186 00:15:48,619 --> 00:15:55,619 And so, as is typical, the iteration process begins with headquarters to change the parameters 187 00:15:57,189 --> 00:15:58,899 of the mission. 188 00:15:58,899 --> 00:16:05,899 To, in a sense, compromise the scientific objectives a little bit in terms of implementing 189 00:16:07,429 --> 00:16:09,509 a requirement set. 190 00:16:09,509 --> 00:16:16,359 And the result is finally you get something that you can pay for and that still meets 191 00:16:16,359 --> 00:16:21,449 the intent of the scientific objectives. 192 00:16:21,449 --> 00:16:24,079 That is a key lesson to learn. 193 00:16:24,079 --> 00:16:29,089 When you are first starting out, when you are first crafting what you want to do, except 194 00:16:29,089 --> 00:16:31,239 it to change. 195 00:16:31,239 --> 00:16:38,239 And the key there is it is usually cost driven as to what you can afford. 196 00:16:38,759 --> 00:16:44,519 Not only that, NASA, just by the nature of what it is doing, since it has never built 197 00:16:44,519 --> 00:16:50,669 an AXAF before, it is really hard to get a good, accurate cost of what it costs. 198 00:16:50,669 --> 00:16:57,669 So, a lot of times, the cost is derived from a parametric usually weight-based system such 199 00:17:01,209 --> 00:17:08,209 that, for instance, if the mirrors or if the solar rays, you want them this big to provide 200 00:17:08,630 --> 00:17:10,199 this much power. 201 00:17:10,199 --> 00:17:14,280 That big means they have to weigh or they mass so many kilograms. 202 00:17:14,280 --> 00:17:20,670 And so that is about X amount of dollars based on weight. 203 00:17:20,670 --> 00:17:27,670 Now, there are a lot of additional factors that you put in like complexity, interfaces, 204 00:17:28,230 --> 00:17:33,300 et cetera, technology readiness, whether you are looking for state-of-the-art or something 205 00:17:33,300 --> 00:17:37,350 that has already flown. 206 00:17:37,350 --> 00:17:41,530 But generally it is what is called a parametric cost model. 207 00:17:41,530 --> 00:17:47,880 And it is not based on taking a look at all the design drawings and saying this cost this 208 00:17:47,880 --> 00:17:51,010 much from the vendor, this cost this much, and you put it all together. 209 00:17:51,010 --> 00:17:53,310 That is called a bottoms-up assessment. 210 00:17:53,310 --> 00:17:59,750 And it is more accurate, but it also relies on having an accurate design picture which 211 00:17:59,750 --> 00:18:02,050 obviously you don't have early on in a program. 212 00:18:02,050 --> 00:18:09,050 I mean it is almost like a black art to try and take a requirement set and craft a design 213 00:18:13,560 --> 00:18:17,760 early on or at least bound the design and bound the cost. 214 00:18:17,760 --> 00:18:22,160 Because, again, early on what you are trying to do is get into the cost envelope and still 215 00:18:22,160 --> 00:18:26,880 meet the scientific objectives or the objectives that you are trying to do. 216 00:18:26,880 --> 00:18:27,320 Yes. 217 00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:31,770 In this final design, how are its capabilities versus the original? 218 00:18:31,770 --> 00:18:36,240 I mean because you didn't put as much money into it. 219 00:18:36,240 --> 00:18:39,070 Correct. 220 00:18:39,070 --> 00:18:46,070 To make it on-orbit replaceable means that all of the boxes that you see in the spacecraft 221 00:18:46,830 --> 00:18:53,830 bus, or a lot of them would have had to have been, on this picture, replaceable. 222 00:18:54,050 --> 00:18:55,500 They were all replaceable. 223 00:18:55,500 --> 00:18:59,740 You have to spend some money making sure that the drawers slide in, slide out, there are 224 00:18:59,740 --> 00:19:02,490 no sharp edges and it is accessible, et cetera. 225 00:19:02,490 --> 00:19:05,030 So, packaging is important. 226 00:19:05,030 --> 00:19:09,930 That is one area where you can reduce cost and not really have an effect on performance, 227 00:19:09,930 --> 00:19:11,890 per se. 228 00:19:11,890 --> 00:19:15,720 However, one of the big areas that we did take a little bit of a hit on performances 229 00:19:15,720 --> 00:19:17,420 is on the mirrors. 230 00:19:17,420 --> 00:19:23,450 Now, x-rays, you cannot just have a regular shaped lens. 231 00:19:23,450 --> 00:19:25,880 What we use is grazing incidence mirrors. 232 00:19:25,880 --> 00:19:27,120 And I will explain this later. 233 00:19:27,120 --> 00:19:32,470 Because the x-rays are so highly energetic, you have to graze them gradually to a focus. 234 00:19:32,470 --> 00:19:36,190 And the original concept had six mirrors nested. 235 00:19:36,190 --> 00:19:41,300 They were basically hyperbola parabola shaped. 236 00:19:41,300 --> 00:19:43,360 The final concept had four. 237 00:19:43,360 --> 00:19:50,360 We had to remove, not the inside or the outside, but two of the middle mirrors. 238 00:19:50,560 --> 00:19:54,000 So, the mirror set is four. 239 00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:58,400 This orbit that this flies in is a highly elliptical orbit. 240 00:19:58,400 --> 00:20:03,470 It is about 140,000 kilometers by 10,000 kilometers. 241 00:20:03,470 --> 00:20:10,220 The original orbit was in low earth orbit which is about 350 kilometers. 242 00:20:10,220 --> 00:20:15,060 And so that affects the viewing time. 243 00:20:15,060 --> 00:20:22,050 But, in all of the other registration and encircled energy, I think that we still were 244 00:20:22,050 --> 00:20:26,980 able to meet the original objectives of the scientific mission. 245 00:20:26,980 --> 00:20:33,370 There are ways to compromise that don't really affect directly what the scientists want to 246 00:20:33,370 --> 00:20:34,490 do, but it is a tradeoff. 247 00:20:34,490 --> 00:20:40,240 It is usually not their first desire but they signed up to it, they are comfortable with 248 00:20:40,240 --> 00:20:45,610 the final answer. 249 00:20:45,610 --> 00:20:49,030 Explaining a little bit of how it is put together. 250 00:20:49,030 --> 00:20:52,380 This is a rather simplified version. 251 00:20:52,380 --> 00:20:53,210 Here are the solar rays. 252 00:20:53,210 --> 00:20:54,630 That is where we get our power. 253 00:20:54,630 --> 00:20:57,250 This is the spacecraft bus. 254 00:20:57,250 --> 00:21:01,690 This is the HRMA which is the mirrors, the nested cylinders that I was talking about 255 00:21:01,690 --> 00:21:03,290 earlier. 256 00:21:03,290 --> 00:21:07,540 This is a low energy grading and a high energy grading. 257 00:21:07,540 --> 00:21:13,410 For spectroscopy, what you want to do is you want to bend all of the photons in a particular 258 00:21:13,410 --> 00:21:17,250 energy much like a prism does for visible light. 259 00:21:17,250 --> 00:21:19,820 And the way you do that is with these facets. 260 00:21:19,820 --> 00:21:24,220 There are probably a thousand facets on this. 261 00:21:24,220 --> 00:21:25,530 And I have a picture of that later. 262 00:21:25,530 --> 00:21:30,540 And you flip it into the beam when you want to get some spectroscopy data. 263 00:21:30,540 --> 00:21:37,540 And you remove the grading when you want to get an x-ray image of what you are looking 264 00:21:37,850 --> 00:21:38,600 at. 265 00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:43,600 And that is a function of what the scientists want to do at a particular target. 266 00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:48,970 Some scientists want to get an image because that conveys more information for them than 267 00:21:48,970 --> 00:21:50,760 spectroscopy. 268 00:21:50,760 --> 00:21:56,890 Others want to see a spectrogram of the image because that tells them what the photons are 269 00:21:56,890 --> 00:21:58,980 and what the energy of the photons are. 270 00:21:58,980 --> 00:22:05,370 And that can tell you, for instance, what elements are present and what temperatures 271 00:22:05,370 --> 00:22:10,610 for a given gas cloud or neutron star or what have you. 272 00:22:10,610 --> 00:22:12,200 And then we have an optical bench. 273 00:22:12,200 --> 00:22:15,400 And all that means is it is a piece of structure that is very stiff. 274 00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:22,020 Because obviously you can tell if you flex a lot that sure doesn't help your camera imaging 275 00:22:22,020 --> 00:22:22,720 the performance. 276 00:22:22,720 --> 00:22:27,910 It has got to be very stiff, and that is why they call it an optical bench. 277 00:22:27,910 --> 00:22:31,660 And the ISM is the Integrated Science Module. 278 00:22:31,660 --> 00:22:38,310 That is where the instruments sit in Chandra. 279 00:22:38,310 --> 00:22:44,770 And here is a picture, as I mentioned before, of how the x-rays graze off of the cylinders 280 00:22:44,770 --> 00:22:48,450 in the HRMA down to a focal point about ten meters away. 281 00:22:48,450 --> 00:22:55,450 Jeff had mentioned that sometimes it takes quite a while for science to come to fruition 282 00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:00,800 in a mission. 283 00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:02,820 And this is probably a good case. 284 00:23:02,820 --> 00:23:07,340 It started in 1978 with some concepts. 285 00:23:07,340 --> 00:23:14,340 We did get approval for new start in 1988, so you can tell there was ten years time where 286 00:23:15,120 --> 00:23:19,120 this was just an idea in a scientist's mind. 287 00:23:19,120 --> 00:23:26,120 And typically the course of events is that the scientist lobbies and submits papers, 288 00:23:27,660 --> 00:23:34,070 submits proposals to NASA, lobbies Congress, lobbies the National Science Foundation to 289 00:23:34,070 --> 00:23:38,260 say this is a good idea, we should do this and here is the concept. 290 00:23:38,260 --> 00:23:45,260 And, of course, that concept changes over time as you get new technology, et cetera. 291 00:23:45,990 --> 00:23:48,350 And so, that is exactly what happened here. 292 00:23:48,350 --> 00:23:53,650 We did get approval ten years from when the original concept started. 293 00:23:53,650 --> 00:24:00,650 Authority to proceed for the prime contract was in January 1989. 294 00:24:00,820 --> 00:24:07,400 What this means is that is when we hired a contractor to build the spacecraft. 295 00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:11,570 And the start of that process is called ATP. 296 00:24:11,570 --> 00:24:13,770 We had two separate ATPs. 297 00:24:13,770 --> 00:24:20,400 Sometimes you can say I can let out one contract to a company and let that company buy the 298 00:24:20,400 --> 00:24:25,010 science instruments or I can compete the science instruments separately. 299 00:24:25,010 --> 00:24:32,010 And there are various pros and cons, but in this case NASA decided to compete the instruments 300 00:24:32,630 --> 00:24:34,430 separately. 301 00:24:34,430 --> 00:24:41,160 From an engineer's point of view, one of the things that should peak your interest or note 302 00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:46,730 that when you have separate contracts you always have a question of integration. 303 00:24:46,730 --> 00:24:48,990 If you are going to compete separately, you are going to have two separate pieces. 304 00:24:48,990 --> 00:24:51,590 Who is going to integrate them? 305 00:24:51,590 --> 00:24:55,720 The integration job will be harder when you compete them separately. 306 00:24:55,720 --> 00:25:01,560 Now, your performance is probably better when you have direct insight into the instruments 307 00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:04,790 and direct insight into the spacecraft contractor. 308 00:25:04,790 --> 00:25:09,620 But the penalty is now, when you integrate the two, you have to make sure that works. 309 00:25:09,620 --> 00:25:14,600 And so, as a project manager, as a systems engineer you have to make sure you apply enough 310 00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:19,930 resources to make sure they work together and continue to work together as they are 311 00:25:19,930 --> 00:25:26,930 defining the interfaces, for instance, between the two elements. 312 00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:35,680 This was interesting in that in order to get it funded, Congress said we will let you build 313 00:25:36,290 --> 00:25:42,590 an AXAF but, along the way, you have to do some testing to show that you can meet the 314 00:25:42,590 --> 00:25:45,450 performance that you say you can meet. 315 00:25:45,450 --> 00:25:52,450 And so, we were required by law to have a test of the mirrors in June of '91. 316 00:25:53,240 --> 00:26:00,240 And we also had another test later on, the same thing, to verify that we could get the 317 00:26:00,310 --> 00:26:07,310 performance that we showed on paper with actual hardware before we committed to fly and before 318 00:26:09,390 --> 00:26:13,600 NASA committed to spend the rest of the money to fly. 319 00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:19,220 And so, sometimes that happens, sometimes if you have a smaller program it doesn't go 320 00:26:19,220 --> 00:26:22,660 to Congress so you don't get into those things. 321 00:26:22,660 --> 00:26:27,490 But, when you have a great observatory and NASA is spending a lot of money, a lot of 322 00:26:27,490 --> 00:26:34,360 times Congress will get in and say yes, you're constrained, but you have to show me along 323 00:26:34,360 --> 00:26:38,420 the way that you can do this. 324 00:26:38,420 --> 00:26:45,420 I wouldn't be surprised if Congress does that for the CEV, the new vehicle coming up, or 325 00:26:45,710 --> 00:26:47,250 the CLV. 326 00:26:47,250 --> 00:26:53,300 In fact, for the CLV, the launch vehicle, there is a push to have a demonstration test 327 00:26:53,300 --> 00:26:58,710 early just to verify that we can do it. 328 00:26:58,710 --> 00:27:03,830 Now, during this time, of course, we are still formulating requirements. 329 00:27:03,830 --> 00:27:05,730 And we rack up the cost. 330 00:27:05,730 --> 00:27:09,730 And, low and behold, NASA cannot afford it. 331 00:27:09,730 --> 00:27:14,750 We went through a program restructure at that time where we dropped a couple of the mirrors, 332 00:27:14,750 --> 00:27:19,780 we changed its orbit, we removed crew servicing. 333 00:27:19,780 --> 00:27:24,240 And you could tell that the whole shape of the spacecraft changed. 334 00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:27,860 Again, that is unfortunately not atypical. 335 00:27:27,860 --> 00:27:28,980 It happens quite often. 336 00:27:28,980 --> 00:27:29,930 Yes. 337 00:27:29,930 --> 00:27:36,930 What was the reason for the orbit change? 338 00:27:39,120 --> 00:27:41,780 Good question. 339 00:27:41,780 --> 00:27:44,570 In orbit there are Van Allen Radiation Belts. 340 00:27:44,570 --> 00:27:51,360 And we really cannot observe too well within those belts. 341 00:27:51,360 --> 00:27:55,730 Now, in the first mission, the low earth orbit mission we were below the belts so we could 342 00:27:55,730 --> 00:27:56,220 operate. 343 00:27:56,220 --> 00:28:03,000 But the problem with low earth orbit is you have this big earth, you are close to earth, 344 00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,130 and so you need power from the sun. 345 00:28:06,130 --> 00:28:09,130 And, guess what, the sun goes behind the earth. 346 00:28:09,130 --> 00:28:14,570 And so, you are eclipsed for a good percentage of the orbit time. 347 00:28:14,570 --> 00:28:21,570 When we had a 15 year mission in low earth orbit we said since we don't have servicing, 348 00:28:21,930 --> 00:28:23,700 the lifetime cuts down to five years. 349 00:28:23,700 --> 00:28:28,309 Now, if I am five years in low earth orbit, I have just lost two-thirds of my mission 350 00:28:28,309 --> 00:28:29,340 time. 351 00:28:29,340 --> 00:28:34,330 So let's see if we can crank up the orbit, get as far outside the radiation belts as 352 00:28:34,330 --> 00:28:34,870 we can. 353 00:28:34,870 --> 00:28:40,550 And then we have basically 100% visibility, the whole orbit, if we can get completely 354 00:28:40,550 --> 00:28:41,170 outside. 355 00:28:41,170 --> 00:28:48,170 The problem with that is that costs propellant because the radiation belts end, they breathe, 356 00:28:49,630 --> 00:28:53,240 but roughly around 60,000 kilometers. 357 00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:59,990 We could raise apogee to 140,000, but we didn't have enough money to raise perigee. 358 00:28:59,990 --> 00:29:02,580 It gets down to money again. 359 00:29:02,580 --> 00:29:05,580 So, perigee stayed at about 10,000 kilometers. 360 00:29:05,580 --> 00:29:10,760 The resulting orbit time, if you looked at the integral of time outside the radiation 361 00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:13,350 belts, was probably about 70%. 362 00:29:13,350 --> 00:29:16,180 It was a compromise. 363 00:29:16,180 --> 00:29:23,180 We did end up losing some overall time, but about 70% of the orbit is usable for viewing. 364 00:29:26,590 --> 00:29:32,830 That is the strategy and that is why we went to a different orbit. 365 00:29:32,830 --> 00:29:36,650 As you can tell, there are a lot of things that are traded off during that time to fit 366 00:29:36,650 --> 00:29:39,000 within the constraints that you have got. 367 00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:44,190 Again, that is typical. 368 00:29:44,190 --> 00:29:48,350 The three reviews that are kind of standard reviews for all programs and projects are 369 00:29:48,350 --> 00:29:49,950 you start with a requirements review. 370 00:29:49,950 --> 00:29:52,070 And that is pretty basic. 371 00:29:52,070 --> 00:29:57,360 It is held early on. 372 00:29:57,360 --> 00:30:01,320 Requirements have started before that review. 373 00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:04,070 For science missions, you start with science objectives. 374 00:30:04,070 --> 00:30:06,450 And you are percolating science requirements. 375 00:30:06,450 --> 00:30:13,140 And the system requirements review is really a review that baselines, if you will, and 376 00:30:13,140 --> 00:30:18,480 sets the requirements as firm as you can. 377 00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:25,480 And it is usually after you have gone through the cost gyrations, but it is done prior to 378 00:30:27,700 --> 00:30:29,460 doing any of the design reviews. 379 00:30:29,460 --> 00:30:34,550 Once you have a requirements review done, it was in December of '92, almost two years 380 00:30:34,550 --> 00:30:40,059 later we had what is called a preliminary design review in November of '94. 381 00:30:40,059 --> 00:30:46,630 The third review is called a critical design review in February of '96. 382 00:30:46,630 --> 00:30:51,760 What makes a preliminary design review and critical design review has to do with the 383 00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:53,740 maturity level of the design. 384 00:30:53,740 --> 00:31:00,430 For critical design review, supposedly you have on the order of 90% of your drawings 385 00:31:00,430 --> 00:31:05,280 complete and on the order of 10% of your hardware built. 386 00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:12,280 And I think for PDR it is about 10% of your drawings built, the final drawings. 387 00:31:14,900 --> 00:31:18,850 That kind of gages what you are talking about there. 388 00:31:18,850 --> 00:31:23,760 And it is a typical milestone that NASA uses for all of its programs. 389 00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:30,760 Usually these are set early on in the mission, in the program milestones. 390 00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:37,550 And, for political and for programmatic reasons, you tend not to deviate. 391 00:31:37,550 --> 00:31:39,210 You try and meet those milestones. 392 00:31:39,210 --> 00:31:45,190 Even if the project is not as mature as you would like, usually that is one that you try 393 00:31:45,190 --> 00:31:46,309 and keep hold of. 394 00:31:46,309 --> 00:31:52,840 Maybe you don't have 10%, maybe you have 5% or maybe you don't have 90% you have 70%. 395 00:31:52,840 --> 00:31:58,320 Sometimes you do go and you hold the milestone, you hold the review, but when you are not 396 00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:04,520 mature enough sometimes you have to hold a delta review to catch up. 397 00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:10,100 And that is, again, something that NASA does for various reasons. 398 00:32:10,100 --> 00:32:16,610 If the situation is right, sometimes you can slip and allow a single review at the right 399 00:32:16,610 --> 00:32:17,540 time. 400 00:32:17,540 --> 00:32:24,540 Most often it is driven by nontechnical things that require you, either by your customer 401 00:32:27,730 --> 00:32:33,830 headquarters, they don't want you to slip so you tend to hold it where he said he wanted 402 00:32:33,830 --> 00:32:36,880 it. 403 00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:41,929 And then we had the mirror delivery to the calibration facility in November. 404 00:32:41,929 --> 00:32:48,809 It shipped the whole thing to the Cape for launch in February and we launched in July. 405 00:32:48,809 --> 00:32:55,059 You can see we spent about five or six months down at the Cape integrating into the Shuttle 406 00:32:55,059 --> 00:33:00,809 testing, and then we flew in July of '99. 407 00:33:00,809 --> 00:33:02,660 Those are the orbit parameters. 408 00:33:02,660 --> 00:33:06,380 We achieved the final orbit August 7th, so you can see about two weeks. 409 00:33:06,380 --> 00:33:12,450 And the way we did that is the Shuttle only puts stuff to low earth orbit, so you need 410 00:33:12,450 --> 00:33:14,550 some additional propulsion. 411 00:33:14,550 --> 00:33:21,040 We had an upper-stage that got us part of the way there, used most of the energy. 412 00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:22,880 However, it wasn't at the final orbit. 413 00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:29,880 So, integral to the spacecraft, we had a propulsion system that had to do five additional burns 414 00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:35,890 to get us to the final altitude and the final orbit parameters. 415 00:33:35,890 --> 00:33:38,700 That is why it took us about two weeks. 416 00:33:38,700 --> 00:33:41,640 And, again, that is not atypical. 417 00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:46,640 When you are not operating in low earth orbit, it takes you while to get your final orbit. 418 00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:51,770 And these are a couple of interesting parameters. 419 00:33:51,770 --> 00:33:53,990 Safe mode, we will talk a little bit about that. 420 00:33:53,990 --> 00:33:59,670 Spacecraft are designed such that if -- Yeah. 421 00:33:59,670 --> 00:34:06,670 I am just wondering if the inclination affects the requirements at all or does it not really 422 00:34:12,339 --> 00:34:12,589 matter so it just stays [NOISE OBSCURES]? 423 00:34:12,550 --> 00:34:17,719 The 28.5 is driven largely by the launch site at Kennedy Space Center. 424 00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:18,279 Right. 425 00:34:18,279 --> 00:34:25,279 I am just wondering if the science requirements could drive the inclination [OVERLAPPING VOICES]. 426 00:34:26,149 --> 00:34:27,918 For some missions, yes. 427 00:34:27,918 --> 00:34:34,440 We were fairly incentive to that, as long as we took advantage of launching at KSC at 428 00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:35,889 the optimum inclination. 429 00:34:35,889 --> 00:34:38,369 But there are missions like Space Station. 430 00:34:38,369 --> 00:34:45,369 Because you have a launch from KSC and a launch from Russia, to optimize the performance of 431 00:34:47,989 --> 00:34:52,889 both launch centers then the orbit is 58.5. 432 00:34:52,889 --> 00:34:56,748 Now, what that means to KSC launch is that you pay a significant penalty. 433 00:34:56,748 --> 00:35:03,749 You pay about a 30% weight penalty for launch at KSC to the Space Station. 434 00:35:05,799 --> 00:35:12,799 Sometimes the answer is yes, you can optimize inclination, and sometimes, when you have 435 00:35:13,140 --> 00:35:17,839 a large program and multiple launch sites it is a compromise. 436 00:35:17,839 --> 00:35:21,380 So, it is not efficient for each site. 437 00:35:21,380 --> 00:35:28,380 I was mentioning spacecraft typically have their avionics systems. 438 00:35:30,329 --> 00:35:34,039 And typically they do not contract the ground. 439 00:35:34,039 --> 00:35:37,519 They are not in communication with the ground all the time. 440 00:35:37,519 --> 00:35:39,210 And so, for Chandra, that is the case. 441 00:35:39,210 --> 00:35:46,210 We may have "contact" with Chandra probably about 5% to 10% of the time per day. 442 00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:54,640 In the meantime, figure that 90% of the time it is out of communication range. 443 00:35:56,210 --> 00:36:00,220 Now, this is something, by the way, that is somewhat different from a manned mission. 444 00:36:00,220 --> 00:36:05,960 The manned missions tend to optimize and maximize communication coverage. 445 00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:12,960 When Jeff is flying in the Shuttle we probably have 90%, 95% coverage over an orbit and over 446 00:36:13,180 --> 00:36:16,019 a day for communication. 447 00:36:16,019 --> 00:36:19,119 But, in science missions, rarely is that the case. 448 00:36:19,119 --> 00:36:25,900 And so what that means is the whole philosophy of operating a science mission is based on 449 00:36:25,900 --> 00:36:28,069 stored commands. 450 00:36:28,069 --> 00:36:30,460 And so, we send up a stored command load. 451 00:36:30,460 --> 00:36:31,960 And that load is good for a day. 452 00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:37,390 And basically it steps through and automatically executes based on time. 453 00:36:37,390 --> 00:36:43,980 What that also means is you have to design a spacecraft to recognize when it has a problem. 454 00:36:43,980 --> 00:36:50,799 If a hardware box has a failure, it has got to be able to recognize that and go into a 455 00:36:50,799 --> 00:36:57,799 safe mode so that the ground can then recover and configure the systems to continue to operate. 456 00:36:58,509 --> 00:37:05,509 That is one part of flying a spacecraft, is building a robust safe mode to be able to 457 00:37:06,309 --> 00:37:07,289 do that. 458 00:37:07,289 --> 00:37:12,769 And our first problem occurred August 17, 1999. 459 00:37:12,769 --> 00:37:14,710 Now, note it was a ground error. 460 00:37:14,710 --> 00:37:21,710 As usually the case, spacecraft are pretty complicated. 461 00:37:22,460 --> 00:37:29,460 And we probably had 400 or 500 separate procedures and commands on the ground for doing certain 462 00:37:31,700 --> 00:37:33,170 things. 463 00:37:33,170 --> 00:37:40,170 And, even though we try and test them out individually, the combination of those procedures 464 00:37:40,180 --> 00:37:45,809 and in the execution, sometimes you put the spacecraft in the wrong configuration with 465 00:37:45,809 --> 00:37:50,680 one sequence, and then you follow with another sequence. 466 00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:57,230 Low and behold, the software that you designed for safe mode says I am in the wrong configuration. 467 00:37:57,230 --> 00:37:59,960 Sorry, I am going to safe mode. 468 00:37:59,960 --> 00:38:02,759 And so, that happens. 469 00:38:02,759 --> 00:38:08,210 We have had only probably three safe mode events for six years, so that is not too bad 470 00:38:08,210 --> 00:38:09,109 at all. 471 00:38:09,109 --> 00:38:13,660 Hubble, for instance, has had probably an order of magnitude more than that. 472 00:38:13,660 --> 00:38:20,319 I think we have gotten smarter based on our design of Hubble to design this. 473 00:38:20,319 --> 00:38:27,319 But, again, typically spacecraft do have safe mode designs in them. 474 00:38:29,470 --> 00:38:33,039 Given our orbit, we still have a small eclipse season. 475 00:38:33,039 --> 00:38:38,690 Twice a year in the fall and in the spring we have eclipses. 476 00:38:38,690 --> 00:38:45,690 And so our first eclipse season was then. 477 00:38:47,450 --> 00:38:51,910 This is the translation mechanics for the science instruments. 478 00:38:51,910 --> 00:38:53,980 This is where the telescope is. 479 00:38:53,980 --> 00:38:54,999 I won't go through that. 480 00:38:54,999 --> 00:39:01,999 This is kind of where we purchases or we contracted for the various instruments. 481 00:39:03,819 --> 00:39:09,259 This is a CCD imaging spectrometer. 482 00:39:09,259 --> 00:39:16,259 In fact, it was both Penn State and MIT that produced this one. 483 00:39:16,259 --> 00:39:22,029 And that is one of the focal plate instruments and the other one was a high resolution camera 484 00:39:22,029 --> 00:39:26,170 using micro-channel plate technology instead of a CCD. 485 00:39:26,170 --> 00:39:30,369 And that one was from SAO just down the street in Cambridge. 486 00:39:30,369 --> 00:39:35,710 The high energy transmission grating, as I had mentioned, was also from MIT. 487 00:39:35,710 --> 00:39:40,440 And the low energy grating was from the Netherlands. 488 00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:45,450 And this is a good point to make also, is that a lot of times for science instruments 489 00:39:45,450 --> 00:39:51,210 or for science missions, NASA tries to lower the cost of the mission. 490 00:39:51,210 --> 00:39:57,809 And the way you can do that is you can reduce requirements or you can get a partner and 491 00:39:57,809 --> 00:40:03,319 have the partner pay for an instrument that you want to fly. 492 00:40:03,319 --> 00:40:09,589 And so, in this case, as is typically the case for science missions, NASA tries to go 493 00:40:09,589 --> 00:40:15,979 and get international partners that will bring to the table an element or a piece of hardware 494 00:40:15,979 --> 00:40:21,910 or some software that reduces the overall cost of the mission but, at the same time, 495 00:40:21,910 --> 00:40:24,349 maintains its capability. 496 00:40:24,349 --> 00:40:29,549 That is what we did with the low energy transmission grating. 497 00:40:29,549 --> 00:40:35,140 We got the Netherlands to basically design and build that and fly that in exchange for 498 00:40:35,140 --> 00:40:38,400 that kind of arrangement. 499 00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:45,400 They get a percentage of viewing time that they can say for 5% of the viewing time we 500 00:40:45,700 --> 00:40:49,049 get to point the telescope to wherever we want. 501 00:40:49,049 --> 00:40:56,049 And so, typically that is kind of the handoff between our international partners and NASA 502 00:40:56,930 --> 00:41:02,619 in trying to reduce the overall cost to NASA for a given mission. 503 00:41:02,619 --> 00:41:07,180 And these are the gratings, as I had mentioned. 504 00:41:07,180 --> 00:41:10,390 And there are a bunch of facets along these. 505 00:41:10,390 --> 00:41:16,180 Now, notice these are the four mirror shells where they co-align with the four mirror shells, 506 00:41:16,180 --> 00:41:22,119 the inner most and the outer most. 507 00:41:22,119 --> 00:41:23,849 And this is kind of how it works. 508 00:41:23,849 --> 00:41:26,660 The gratings get flipped in. 509 00:41:26,660 --> 00:41:29,900 And this is the array of CCDs. 510 00:41:29,900 --> 00:41:32,470 Each one of these is a CCD. 511 00:41:32,470 --> 00:41:39,470 And the pattern of light or the pattern of x-rays follows along these lines when the 512 00:41:39,890 --> 00:41:41,690 x-rays actually come in. 513 00:41:41,690 --> 00:41:46,390 That is what actually you see. 514 00:41:46,390 --> 00:41:48,809 Now, Chandra does have a ground system architecture. 515 00:41:48,809 --> 00:41:52,069 We communicate with the deep space network. 516 00:41:52,069 --> 00:41:59,069 That is how we communicate because it is not in low earth orbit so we cannot use the satellites 517 00:42:00,249 --> 00:42:03,489 that are around the earth. 518 00:42:03,489 --> 00:42:08,839 We get that signal from that satellite and it is beamed to the control center, here in 519 00:42:08,839 --> 00:42:10,579 Cambridge, in fact. 520 00:42:10,579 --> 00:42:13,089 And we do various things on the data. 521 00:42:13,089 --> 00:42:16,599 We process it out and send it to the general observers. 522 00:42:16,599 --> 00:42:23,599 Now, the way this operates is that every year this control center or the science folks operating 523 00:42:25,660 --> 00:42:29,809 the control center solicit objectives. 524 00:42:29,809 --> 00:42:36,670 OK, science community come and request time and give me a proposal for viewing time for 525 00:42:36,670 --> 00:42:40,299 what you want to do, what target you want to look at, what is the configuration of the 526 00:42:40,299 --> 00:42:42,559 instrument, which instrument, et cetera. 527 00:42:42,559 --> 00:42:47,759 And so, the Chandra folks go through, and they probably collect about 800 proposals 528 00:42:47,759 --> 00:42:51,829 a year from all around the world. 529 00:42:51,829 --> 00:42:55,960 They will select roughly about 200. 530 00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:59,099 And it is not based on numbers, it is based on time. 531 00:42:59,099 --> 00:43:04,960 You have a certain amount of seconds in a year that is available. 532 00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:09,319 And so, some of these proposals have large times, some have small times, but roughly 533 00:43:09,319 --> 00:43:11,190 it is about a four to one. 534 00:43:11,190 --> 00:43:16,700 About 200 are selected, 800 are proposed, so that's good, you're oversubscribed, you 535 00:43:16,700 --> 00:43:18,650 have a lot of interest. 536 00:43:18,650 --> 00:43:21,259 NASA does fund those that are selected. 537 00:43:21,259 --> 00:43:26,430 So if you are a PI and you say I want to go look at Crab Nebula or I want to go look at 538 00:43:26,430 --> 00:43:32,589 a Quasar somewhere, and here are the reasons, here is what that will tell me. 539 00:43:32,589 --> 00:43:33,579 And it gets selected. 540 00:43:33,579 --> 00:43:39,059 NASA will fund you some money to be able to do that observation and process the data and 541 00:43:39,059 --> 00:43:40,390 publish. 542 00:43:40,390 --> 00:43:44,839 Now, NASA won't fund any that were selected from foreign countries. 543 00:43:44,839 --> 00:43:51,839 So the foreign countries, they have to get their funding, but we will allow them viewing 544 00:43:52,279 --> 00:43:53,249 time. 545 00:43:53,249 --> 00:43:54,960 And that is also typically the case. 546 00:43:54,960 --> 00:44:01,960 And, by the way, all of these scientists across the world never have to come to Cambridge. 547 00:44:04,789 --> 00:44:07,859 It is all done electronically. 548 00:44:07,859 --> 00:44:09,460 They don't get their data real-time. 549 00:44:09,460 --> 00:44:13,729 They get it probably a few weeks after the observation. 550 00:44:13,729 --> 00:44:16,269 And the reason for that is there is a lot of processing. 551 00:44:16,269 --> 00:44:21,680 You don't actually send, or you can, but usually you don't send the raw data out to the user. 552 00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:27,650 It is heavily processed, and the products of that processing are what is actually sent 553 00:44:27,650 --> 00:44:28,779 out. 554 00:44:28,779 --> 00:44:34,390 Now, there are tools that the Control Center also provides, but generally it is the process 555 00:44:34,390 --> 00:44:37,950 data that is sent. 556 00:44:37,950 --> 00:44:38,390 Yes? 557 00:44:38,390 --> 00:44:45,390 What sort of data is this? 558 00:44:46,690 --> 00:44:46,940 Images or numerical data? 559 00:44:46,910 --> 00:44:50,950 It is data that can be used for images. 560 00:44:50,950 --> 00:44:57,950 It can be used for registering each photon, what energy it is. 561 00:44:58,049 --> 00:45:01,359 There are a lot of different choices of data. 562 00:45:01,359 --> 00:45:08,359 And some of the data is overlapping, but it does give you information on energy, location, 563 00:45:09,859 --> 00:45:16,859 number count, where in the field. 564 00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:25,710 It can be used to then process an image or process a spectrogram. 565 00:45:25,710 --> 00:45:28,859 And you do that by using the tools that are also provided. 566 00:45:28,859 --> 00:45:35,329 It is like a viewer or it is like a piece of software that allows you to view what is 567 00:45:35,329 --> 00:45:36,109 in that data. 568 00:45:36,109 --> 00:45:37,529 But the data is just the raw data. 569 00:45:37,529 --> 00:45:43,009 It is just a series of tables. 570 00:45:43,009 --> 00:45:45,819 And, as we said, it began in 1978. 571 00:45:45,819 --> 00:45:48,579 I picked the prime and was given a new start. 572 00:45:48,579 --> 00:45:51,829 I am not going to go through these. 573 00:45:51,829 --> 00:45:54,229 It was restructured. 574 00:45:54,229 --> 00:45:55,729 We went to four mirror pairs. 575 00:45:55,729 --> 00:45:59,819 We dropped two focal plane instruments, dropped the servicing requirements. 576 00:45:59,819 --> 00:46:00,519 I mentioned that. 577 00:46:00,519 --> 00:46:07,519 Interestingly enough, one of the instruments we wanted to create a separate spacecraft 578 00:46:09,619 --> 00:46:12,160 just for that instrument. 579 00:46:12,160 --> 00:46:19,029 And, believe it or not, the addition of this spacecraft and this one for the spectroscopy 580 00:46:19,029 --> 00:46:21,759 mission was going to be cheaper than the original concept. 581 00:46:21,759 --> 00:46:28,759 But again, due to cost, we continued this spectroscopy spacecraft for about a year to 582 00:46:31,609 --> 00:46:32,430 two years. 583 00:46:32,430 --> 00:46:36,269 And then that was cut due to cost. 584 00:46:36,269 --> 00:46:40,170 So we ended up flying just this one spacecraft. 585 00:46:40,170 --> 00:46:47,170 And the result is the Chandra Observatory that we have now. 586 00:46:47,619 --> 00:46:51,839 Note that sometimes it is not within your control as to whether your program is cancelled 587 00:46:51,839 --> 00:46:52,749 or not. 588 00:46:52,749 --> 00:46:55,470 We were doing quite well. 589 00:46:55,470 --> 00:46:59,559 It was within our cost envelope that they had given us. 590 00:46:59,559 --> 00:47:04,880 But, at the time, there were other priorities at NASA and there were other overruns at NASA. 591 00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:06,989 And they have to weigh. 592 00:47:06,989 --> 00:47:11,410 Sometimes they say, well, you can have this much money for these many years. 593 00:47:11,410 --> 00:47:13,970 And every year they re-evaluate. 594 00:47:13,970 --> 00:47:19,710 And that is because you don't know how much things are going to cost because NASA typically 595 00:47:19,710 --> 00:47:26,269 builds one of a kind things, and you don't know really how much it costs until it is 596 00:47:26,269 --> 00:47:27,609 already done. 597 00:47:27,609 --> 00:47:31,079 So that re-evaluation process continues now. 598 00:47:31,079 --> 00:47:34,339 And it will probably continue for as long as NASA flies. 599 00:47:34,339 --> 00:47:40,549 So imaging and spectroscopy is what we do. 600 00:47:40,549 --> 00:47:42,190 Why is imaging so important? 601 00:47:42,190 --> 00:47:49,190 Well, clearly this image was a Rosat image with the highest technology at the time. 602 00:47:50,249 --> 00:47:52,680 And here is the Chandra image. 603 00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:55,719 And you can see the neutron star right there. 604 00:47:55,719 --> 00:48:00,390 And there is no way you can see a neutron star in there. 605 00:48:00,390 --> 00:48:06,809 And they can learn a lot more from this image than they can from this, so that is why scientists 606 00:48:06,809 --> 00:48:10,969 push to get good imaging resolution as well as good spectroscopy. 607 00:48:10,969 --> 00:48:17,969 The biggest challenge for us on Chandra was the mirrors. 608 00:48:20,430 --> 00:48:27,430 Now, recognize that due to the analysis that we performed early on, yes, this was all theoretically 609 00:48:31,809 --> 00:48:37,059 possible, but we had to be able to polish the surfaces of those mirrors, those grazing 610 00:48:37,059 --> 00:48:42,249 incidence mirrors to an accuracy of on the order of angstroms. 611 00:48:42,249 --> 00:48:46,009 And that is pretty small. 612 00:48:46,009 --> 00:48:47,140 Can we measure that? 613 00:48:47,140 --> 00:48:48,559 The answer is no. 614 00:48:48,559 --> 00:48:54,269 At the time, we couldn't even measure how accurately we needed to polish the mirrors. 615 00:48:54,269 --> 00:48:59,349 So that tells you that, boy, we've got our work cut out. 616 00:48:59,349 --> 00:49:06,349 We had to work with the National Institute for Standards to figure out how to first measure 617 00:49:08,269 --> 00:49:13,160 how accurately we can polish it and then ended up polishing the mirrors. 618 00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:20,160 And polishing, as a process, getting down to that smoothness clearly is a huge challenge 619 00:49:21,630 --> 00:49:23,539 and takes a long time. 620 00:49:23,539 --> 00:49:28,999 And so, that was probably our biggest challenge, is to polish the mirrors. 621 00:49:28,999 --> 00:49:35,999 Metrology is the science of working mirror technology and getting the surface figure 622 00:49:39,109 --> 00:49:41,680 of the mirrors correct. 623 00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:48,680 So, really, the key to success is developing three different types of metrology measurements 624 00:49:49,779 --> 00:49:52,979 that are independent, that allow you to cross-check. 625 00:49:52,979 --> 00:49:58,150 Because you are talking about things you have never built before and you are pushing the 626 00:49:58,150 --> 00:50:02,269 state of the art and you don't know how to measure it. 627 00:50:02,269 --> 00:50:09,269 The key there for an engineer should say, OK, I need not just one way of checking my 628 00:50:10,059 --> 00:50:17,059 work, but I need at least two ways, and preferably three independent ways of making sure that 629 00:50:17,380 --> 00:50:19,380 I am doing the right thing. 630 00:50:19,380 --> 00:50:25,869 So when you're pushing the state of the art, a good lesson is try and get into a position 631 00:50:25,869 --> 00:50:32,259 where you have got more than one independent check of your analysis to make sure it is 632 00:50:32,259 --> 00:50:33,599 correct. 633 00:50:33,599 --> 00:50:35,640 So that was a very big challenge for us. 634 00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:40,749 And, again, that is kind of how it goes down. 635 00:50:40,749 --> 00:50:47,749 This is the general shape of the mirrors. 636 00:50:48,559 --> 00:50:52,589 And here are the mirror pairs being assembled. 637 00:50:52,589 --> 00:50:57,229 And, of course, one thing about the mirrors is when you are talking about that surface 638 00:50:57,229 --> 00:51:03,239 finish, you cannot just assemble it in your garage with dust around. 639 00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:06,410 You have to be extremely clean. 640 00:51:06,410 --> 00:51:12,489 And, believe it or not, one of the dirtiest things in a laboratory is a human. 641 00:51:12,489 --> 00:51:19,489 And so, a human has to be almost completely covered to prevent any kind of accumulation 642 00:51:19,940 --> 00:51:21,339 on the mirrors themselves. 643 00:51:21,339 --> 00:51:28,190 In fact, we had to limit the exposure time of humans to the unpolished and polished mirrors 644 00:51:28,190 --> 00:51:35,190 during this timeframe because contamination is an incredible problem when you are talking 645 00:51:35,529 --> 00:51:42,529 about the atomic scales of polishing the mirrors. 646 00:51:43,979 --> 00:51:49,670 Again, I mention that the important thing is to make sure that you are doing cross-checks 647 00:51:49,670 --> 00:51:51,969 in the metrology as you are going along. 648 00:51:51,969 --> 00:51:54,650 Because, again, you don't know exactly what you are doing. 649 00:51:54,650 --> 00:51:59,469 I mean on paper, yes, you've got an analytical solution that tells you the right answer, 650 00:51:59,469 --> 00:52:00,660 but you have never done it before. 651 00:52:00,660 --> 00:52:01,769 You have never built it before. 652 00:52:01,769 --> 00:52:03,489 You don't know how to measure it. 653 00:52:03,489 --> 00:52:09,170 So you have got to work on building confidence that your analysis is correct. 654 00:52:09,170 --> 00:52:11,920 How do I know that analysis is correct? 655 00:52:11,920 --> 00:52:18,479 And so, you have got to think about a sanity check, if you will, to make sure that those 656 00:52:18,479 --> 00:52:20,130 are correct. 657 00:52:20,130 --> 00:52:25,719 And, of course, the best way for proving that it is correct is test them. 658 00:52:25,719 --> 00:52:27,849 And that is what we did. 659 00:52:27,849 --> 00:52:30,819 Mandated by Congress, we tested the mirrors. 660 00:52:30,819 --> 00:52:33,890 Now, the thing about that is so I test the mirrors. 661 00:52:33,890 --> 00:52:40,890 I am testing the mirrors in a 1G environment so, even after the test, how do I know that 662 00:52:41,239 --> 00:52:44,079 those results are correct? 663 00:52:44,079 --> 00:52:48,979 Because the 1G deflection, even though you think it is small, it does affect the mirror 664 00:52:48,979 --> 00:52:51,609 performance on the ground versus in orbit. 665 00:52:51,609 --> 00:52:54,380 And another thing is the finite source distance. 666 00:52:54,380 --> 00:53:01,380 You cannot get a source that is infinitely far away on the ground just because of the 667 00:53:01,930 --> 00:53:03,700 nature of putting a source out there. 668 00:53:03,700 --> 00:53:10,700 Our source was about, I think, a quarter mile away. 669 00:53:10,849 --> 00:53:17,670 And we had to make analytical corrections to compensate for how we expected the spot 670 00:53:17,670 --> 00:53:21,069 size to change because of that finite source distance. 671 00:53:21,069 --> 00:53:28,069 We had to analytically correct the image on the ground to compensate for the 1G affects 672 00:53:28,769 --> 00:53:30,269 of the mirrors. 673 00:53:30,269 --> 00:53:32,650 And so, even a test you would think, OK, go test it. 674 00:53:32,650 --> 00:53:37,489 Well, it is not straightforward because, even in that test, that is not a true representation 675 00:53:37,489 --> 00:53:39,910 of how it would work on orbit. 676 00:53:39,910 --> 00:53:44,089 So it is a lot more complicated than one would think. 677 00:53:44,089 --> 00:53:48,380 What do you use your x-rays for? 678 00:53:48,380 --> 00:53:51,390 Various things. 679 00:53:51,390 --> 00:53:56,509 We had some monochromatic x-rays at various wavelengths. 680 00:53:56,509 --> 00:53:58,219 We had registration x-rays. 681 00:53:58,219 --> 00:53:59,390 Iron. 682 00:53:59,390 --> 00:54:02,599 A certain wavelength of iron is a big one to use. 683 00:54:02,599 --> 00:54:05,779 You don't have a picture of the big tunnel, do you? 684 00:54:05,779 --> 00:54:06,599 I think I do in here. 685 00:54:06,599 --> 00:54:08,319 I have got a picture of it and I can talk about. 686 00:54:08,319 --> 00:54:15,200 But that is another thing, is when you are testing, how well do I know my source? 687 00:54:15,200 --> 00:54:19,079 And that is all factored into verifying that you have got the performance correct, because 688 00:54:19,079 --> 00:54:23,829 if your source is all over the place and you haven't characterized your source well enough 689 00:54:23,829 --> 00:54:30,829 then how in the world can you say that the mirrors are that good? 690 00:54:32,890 --> 00:54:34,049 So we did end-to-end testing. 691 00:54:34,049 --> 00:54:39,499 And, again, you don't just look at the raw data and say, yeah, I am there. 692 00:54:39,499 --> 00:54:45,559 Even in the ground test, a lot of times you have to massage the data and compensate analytically 693 00:54:45,559 --> 00:54:49,779 for factors that you cannot control. 694 00:54:49,779 --> 00:54:54,859 And the key to success there is good systems engineering. 695 00:54:54,859 --> 00:54:59,349 And a lot of that is because of multiple separate parties, academia, nonprofits and foreign 696 00:54:59,349 --> 00:55:02,940 groups all involved in the workings of AXAF. 697 00:55:02,940 --> 00:55:06,209 You have got to make sure that you have got a team that works together. 698 00:55:06,209 --> 00:55:12,549 Lesson learned, as I had mentioned, perform multiple cross-checks either via test or analysis 699 00:55:12,549 --> 00:55:15,059 with a different tool as possible. 700 00:55:15,059 --> 00:55:19,130 Another lesson learned is let more than one group perform the review. 701 00:55:19,130 --> 00:55:26,130 A lot of times, for Chandra, we had the Marshall engineers, but we also contracted SAO down 702 00:55:26,239 --> 00:55:33,239 the street to kind of independently assess, using their own software tools, where we were. 703 00:55:33,450 --> 00:55:38,209 And that was a good idea because sometimes we had good ideas that we could incorporate 704 00:55:38,209 --> 00:55:43,180 and sometimes they had good ideas, but it gave us a sanity check when we both matches 705 00:55:43,180 --> 00:55:44,319 and we both felt good. 706 00:55:44,319 --> 00:55:49,809 There is also no substitute for direct test or measurement. 707 00:55:49,809 --> 00:55:56,809 Analytically, we have wonderful tools nowadays, but they will never take the place of testing. 708 00:55:57,559 --> 00:56:03,039 Another thing that was very important for us because of the iteration cycle with headquarters 709 00:56:03,039 --> 00:56:09,039 on funding is make sure that you keep the science or the scientists that are part of 710 00:56:09,039 --> 00:56:14,269 the mission informed and part of the decision-making process. 711 00:56:14,269 --> 00:56:18,880 One would think, and one would like to think that this is a technical project, all things 712 00:56:18,880 --> 00:56:20,309 are technical. 713 00:56:20,309 --> 00:56:25,009 No, there are personalities involved and there are human responses involved. 714 00:56:25,009 --> 00:56:30,910 And so, to keep the team together you need make sure that the science is informed and 715 00:56:30,910 --> 00:56:33,059 supporting your decision-making process. 716 00:56:33,059 --> 00:56:40,059 A lot of times that is overlooked, but it is, nonetheless, very important as you are 717 00:56:40,309 --> 00:56:41,859 building a project. 718 00:56:41,859 --> 00:56:48,859 And the final lesson learned is, as we are going through and making those mirrors, you 719 00:56:49,190 --> 00:56:53,789 construct what is called an error budget. 720 00:56:53,789 --> 00:56:57,709 You assume perfect performance and then you kind of step back and say I am going to allow 721 00:56:57,709 --> 00:57:01,749 imperfect performance in this region. 722 00:57:01,749 --> 00:57:05,309 And I am going to allocate that imperfect performance to thermal design. 723 00:57:05,309 --> 00:57:12,309 I am going to allocate imperfect performance to the inaccurate knowledge of knowing the 724 00:57:12,579 --> 00:57:14,579 source positions in the sky. 725 00:57:14,579 --> 00:57:21,440 I am going to allocate some error budget to flexing of the optical bench. 726 00:57:21,440 --> 00:57:28,440 I am going to allocate some error sources to the difference between how long the focal 727 00:57:28,690 --> 00:57:32,190 length is and how long I think it is. 728 00:57:32,190 --> 00:57:33,930 And so, you take each of the error terms. 729 00:57:33,930 --> 00:57:37,869 And for Chandra we probably had a hundred or more. 730 00:57:37,869 --> 00:57:44,160 And you go through and you verify that your assumption in that error budget term was correct. 731 00:57:44,160 --> 00:57:48,989 And usually, for the critical ones, you did it in more than one way, more than one method 732 00:57:48,989 --> 00:57:54,309 so that you were sure that you had those error terms defined. 733 00:57:54,309 --> 00:57:58,469 And the end result was we had mirrors that performed better than expected. 734 00:57:58,469 --> 00:58:05,469 And, as a result, the payoff is just wonderful. 735 00:58:09,329 --> 00:58:12,789 This is a time-lapse series of images. 736 00:58:12,789 --> 00:58:19,789 And, supposedly, this wave front was moving out from the source pulsar at significant 737 00:58:23,599 --> 00:58:28,579 fractions of the speed of light on the order of 20% to 30% of the speed of light. 738 00:58:28,579 --> 00:58:29,599 That was pretty cool. 739 00:58:29,599 --> 00:58:31,809 And if you need more information just talk to Jeff. 740 00:58:31,809 --> 00:58:38,809 But that was a pretty big payoff. 741 00:58:42,079 --> 00:58:46,619 The next challenge that we had was the programmatic challenge. 742 00:58:46,619 --> 00:58:53,489 Again, as I had mentioned, the normal process of going through a program in a project is 743 00:58:53,489 --> 00:58:56,400 you are first trying to size the mission. 744 00:58:56,400 --> 00:58:59,380 And, really, you are sizing it for cost. 745 00:58:59,380 --> 00:59:02,880 And that is very hard to do when you are building something new. 746 00:59:02,880 --> 00:59:07,459 And that was a very big challenge. 747 00:59:07,459 --> 00:59:10,880 And so, we changed a lot of things. 748 00:59:10,880 --> 00:59:17,739 But, eventually, the key or the critical thing that you are trying to do is I compromise 749 00:59:17,739 --> 00:59:21,359 on this but I want to still try and maintain performance. 750 00:59:21,359 --> 00:59:27,890 We maintained our imaging resolution performance and our registration performance. 751 00:59:27,890 --> 00:59:32,119 And we compromised on a few other things but we maintained that performance. 752 00:59:32,119 --> 00:59:39,119 Finish this slide and then we will take a quick break. 753 00:59:41,309 --> 00:59:48,309 Note down here that we also needed to reduce the weight by a factor of two from our original 754 00:59:50,880 --> 00:59:51,989 designs. 755 00:59:51,989 --> 00:59:56,089 Our original designs were pretty simple aluminum structures. 756 00:59:56,089 --> 01:00:02,019 Our final designs were the best composites that we knew how to make at lowest weight. 757 01:00:02,019 --> 01:00:07,430 And so, that optical bench, that tube was all composite. 758 01:00:07,430 --> 01:00:13,789 And so, that is the kind of weight reduction scheme we had to go through. 759 01:00:13,789 --> 01:00:18,749 Now, also all of the fittings, that means all of the brackets that we use were also 760 01:00:18,749 --> 01:00:20,059 composite. 761 01:00:20,059 --> 01:00:27,059 And another challenge that we had is analyzing the stresses in a complicated composite fitting. 762 01:00:29,999 --> 01:00:30,479 Very hard to do. 763 01:00:30,479 --> 01:00:35,829 Didn't have techniques to do it when we started. 764 01:00:35,829 --> 01:00:41,299 As part of the process of building this telescope, we had to go through and learn that and develop 765 01:00:41,299 --> 01:00:42,029 those techniques. 766 01:00:42,029 --> 01:00:49,029 Before the break, I just want to point out I hope you all are catching the incredible 767 01:00:51,410 --> 01:00:58,309 parallels between this project, a complex technological process and the sorts of things 768 01:00:58,309 --> 01:01:01,180 that we've heard about the systems engineering of the Shuttle. 769 01:01:01,180 --> 01:01:08,180 Right from the weight problems and composites, new materials, new ways of analysis right 770 01:01:10,719 --> 01:01:16,609 into the intervention of Congress into the engineering process, I mean it is all there. 771 01:01:16,609 --> 01:01:22,969 And I think whenever you get involved in a big space project you can expect that those 772 01:01:22,969 --> 01:01:29,019 things are going to happen, and they are probably going to happen in the Exploration Program 773 01:01:29,019 --> 01:01:29,369 as well. 774 01:01:29,369 --> 01:01:33,940 Two minute break and then we will start up again. 775 01:01:33,940 --> 01:01:38,380 Start up again. 776 01:01:38,380 --> 01:01:41,339 Let's see. 777 01:01:41,339 --> 01:01:48,339 We were talking about for us the next biggest challenge was programmatic in that it you 778 01:01:53,059 --> 01:01:55,180 have to work that early on. 779 01:01:55,180 --> 01:02:00,589 And typically, especially the more expensive missions do go through this as a typical part 780 01:02:00,589 --> 01:02:02,410 of the lifecycle of a project. 781 01:02:02,410 --> 01:02:07,150 I have a question on that last slide. 782 01:02:07,150 --> 01:02:09,670 [NOISE OBSCURES] 783 01:02:09,670 --> 01:02:15,579 The budget for systems engineering was cut which translates directly to the number of 784 01:02:15,579 --> 01:02:18,109 folks at the contractor site. 785 01:02:18,109 --> 01:02:22,130 Working systems engineering was cut so we were challenged. 786 01:02:22,130 --> 01:02:29,130 And what we did at Marshall was we offset with NASA's civil servants doing functions 787 01:02:30,130 --> 01:02:35,160 and tasks that the contractor would normally do to compensate for that. 788 01:02:35,160 --> 01:02:38,359 So that is what that meant. 789 01:02:38,359 --> 01:02:45,359 Typically, systems engineering, a very important thing if you talk to folks in the trade, almost 790 01:02:45,459 --> 01:02:50,059 everyone has a different idea of what all is encompassed in systems engineering. 791 01:02:50,059 --> 01:02:55,180 But the point is there probably are a number of things that almost everybody would agree 792 01:02:55,180 --> 01:02:56,709 are part of systems engineering. 793 01:02:56,709 --> 01:03:00,349 And they are very key to executing the program and the project. 794 01:03:00,349 --> 01:03:02,869 They are really the glue that holds all the subsystems together. 795 01:03:02,869 --> 01:03:09,869 And I will probably talk more about it, but for good systems engineers you have to be 796 01:03:11,809 --> 01:03:17,799 able to communicate well with all the other subsystems and all the other stakeholders, 797 01:03:17,799 --> 01:03:22,479 including the science when you have a science mission, including the users when you have 798 01:03:22,479 --> 01:03:28,729 a manned mission, including safety and everybody to make sure they are all connected. 799 01:03:28,729 --> 01:03:35,729 And be smart enough to be able to challenge the subsystems when they really have their 800 01:03:36,369 --> 01:03:43,369 own ideas on where this needs to go and it is not really in concert with everybody else. 801 01:03:49,869 --> 01:03:56,609 Weight reduction did have some impacts, as I mentioned, using light-weight composites. 802 01:03:56,609 --> 01:03:59,640 And that was a challenge in and of itself. 803 01:03:59,640 --> 01:04:05,089 We also dropped two of the SIs. 804 01:04:05,089 --> 01:04:09,359 Another challenge was the science instrument module which was all composite. 805 01:04:09,359 --> 01:04:16,359 And it had the capability of adjusting focus and translating, so it had two degrees of 806 01:04:17,170 --> 01:04:17,619 freedom. 807 01:04:17,619 --> 01:04:24,619 But it needed to be reproducible in terms of motion on the micron scale over the whole 808 01:04:28,469 --> 01:04:30,339 orbit environment. 809 01:04:30,339 --> 01:04:34,420 That was quite a challenge in and of itself to be able to do that. 810 01:04:34,420 --> 01:04:41,420 I mean just kind of a flavor for the things that you have to deal with is not everybody 811 01:04:43,469 --> 01:04:50,469 had the same analysis tools so universities like MIT and like SAO had different structural 812 01:04:51,170 --> 01:04:56,440 analysis tools for their hardware than the contractors did. 813 01:04:56,440 --> 01:05:03,440 Now you do a couple loads analysis, which is you pull together all of your stress, all 814 01:05:04,759 --> 01:05:11,759 of your structure analysis models together in one place and you go through a loads assessment 815 01:05:13,319 --> 01:05:14,489 all through the whole element. 816 01:05:14,489 --> 01:05:21,009 Well, to do that I need a model from you, I need a model from you, I need a model from 817 01:05:21,009 --> 01:05:21,259 you. But you are in California, you are a university, you are another company and you have to make 818 01:05:30,199 --> 01:05:32,219 sure they all play together. 819 01:05:32,219 --> 01:05:36,459 And a lot of times there is parochialness with company A, I am not going to use anything 820 01:05:36,459 --> 01:05:37,369 but my model. 821 01:05:37,369 --> 01:05:42,529 And the university says, well, I cannot do anything but what we have been doing. 822 01:05:42,529 --> 01:05:46,910 And university C says, well, this is the only thing that will work and you guys are crazy. 823 01:05:46,910 --> 01:05:51,829 It is not that bad but that is the kind of thing that you have to deal with as a systems 824 01:05:51,829 --> 01:05:52,249 engineer. 825 01:05:52,249 --> 01:05:54,359 You have to make sure everybody plays together. 826 01:05:54,359 --> 01:06:01,359 And sometimes you have to go through and work the best solution that may not be the optimum 827 01:06:01,469 --> 01:06:02,910 solution for each piece. 828 01:06:02,910 --> 01:06:09,910 But it is the optimum solution for the overall answer. 829 01:06:13,809 --> 01:06:20,809 Again, getting the programmatic challenge behind us, a key thing is also setting allocations. 830 01:06:24,559 --> 01:06:26,130 I talk about the error budgets. 831 01:06:26,130 --> 01:06:33,130 Another good thing that the systems engineer does is allocates various important resources. 832 01:06:34,049 --> 01:06:37,469 And one that every spacecraft does is weight. 833 01:06:37,469 --> 01:06:44,469 Weight, power and data are usually three of the important resources that are allocated. 834 01:06:45,369 --> 01:06:52,369 For scientific telescope missions another one is error budgets for scientific performance, 835 01:06:53,940 --> 01:07:00,940 but the key to that is good weight allocation and good iteration, which with each of the 836 01:07:02,529 --> 01:07:08,229 elements that you allocated the weight to, to keep up with them to make sure they can 837 01:07:08,229 --> 01:07:11,180 meet that or it looks like they are going to exceed. 838 01:07:11,180 --> 01:07:16,739 So I have got to go borrow some of that allocation from somebody else. 839 01:07:16,739 --> 01:07:21,719 And I have got to take away from Peter, if you will, to pay Paul. 840 01:07:21,719 --> 01:07:27,890 So systems engineering and going through that making the initial allocations and keeping 841 01:07:27,890 --> 01:07:33,890 up with that is a pretty critical factor to making sure you get to the final answer. 842 01:07:33,890 --> 01:07:40,890 And, if you do that well, then usually you have less of a problem getting to the final 843 01:07:42,499 --> 01:07:45,279 solution. 844 01:07:45,279 --> 01:07:52,279 To compensate for the loss of systems engineering, we established technical oversight panels 845 01:07:53,229 --> 01:07:58,430 which were NASA employees at our center. 846 01:07:58,430 --> 01:08:04,538 We controlled, at a project level, the internal ICDs. 847 01:08:04,538 --> 01:08:05,400 Now, what is an ICD? 848 01:08:05,400 --> 01:08:08,180 It is an interface control drawing. 849 01:08:08,180 --> 01:08:15,180 Because when you have company A developing an element and university A, where they come 850 01:08:17,589 --> 01:08:18,859 together is an interface. 851 01:08:18,859 --> 01:08:24,339 And you have to document that interface, not just mechanically but thermally. 852 01:08:24,339 --> 01:08:28,510 What is the heat flow across the interface, the data across the interface, the power, 853 01:08:28,510 --> 01:08:32,120 the signal characteristics across the interface? 854 01:08:32,120 --> 01:08:33,190 The data flow. 855 01:08:33,190 --> 01:08:37,080 What data is going across the interface? 856 01:08:37,080 --> 01:08:42,779 And, as you can realize, as both of those things change, you have to change the interface. 857 01:08:42,779 --> 01:08:45,970 So you have to keep up with that. 858 01:08:45,970 --> 01:08:52,970 And a lot of times good systems engineers will recognize the further away in location 859 01:08:54,229 --> 01:08:58,950 it is the harder it is to interface with the two parties. 860 01:08:58,950 --> 01:09:05,430 When you are in California it is one thing when they are in the same town, it is another 861 01:09:05,430 --> 01:09:09,690 thing when they are in the same country and it is another thing where they are across 862 01:09:09,690 --> 01:09:14,220 the water when you are integrating an international partner. 863 01:09:14,220 --> 01:09:19,700 So, as systems engineers, the factor is the closer you are the better it is because I 864 01:09:19,700 --> 01:09:26,700 can just go in a car and go across town to get out the drawings and talk about the drawings 865 01:09:26,870 --> 01:09:33,068 versus in California that is a plane ride. 866 01:09:33,068 --> 01:09:40,068 But, in Europe, the time difference allows you to only be able to talk to them for a 867 01:09:40,250 --> 01:09:44,370 few hours a day because that is when your work shifts overlap. 868 01:09:44,370 --> 01:09:48,710 So it is a lot more complicated interacting with folks in Europe, interacting with folks 869 01:09:48,710 --> 01:09:55,710 in Japan, in India because of the time difference and because it is very far away when you have 870 01:09:56,070 --> 01:09:57,770 to sit down. 871 01:09:57,770 --> 01:10:04,770 Those are kind of the challenges as systems engineers that you should think about. 872 01:10:06,309 --> 01:10:07,460 Lessons learned. 873 01:10:07,460 --> 01:10:13,070 Set your resource allocations early and continue to monitor them and work with each of the 874 01:10:13,070 --> 01:10:20,070 owners of the elements of those allocations to make sure that they are meeting their allocation. 875 01:10:21,059 --> 01:10:25,900 As you recognize, it is a zero sum gain. 876 01:10:25,900 --> 01:10:31,550 So when somebody goes over their allocation somebody has got to be reduced. 877 01:10:31,550 --> 01:10:38,550 And it is very difficult sometimes to negotiate that reduction because engineers typically 878 01:10:40,330 --> 01:10:42,690 want to hold their margin, they don't want to release it. 879 01:10:42,690 --> 01:10:47,880 They want it because they are not yet confident in their final solution. 880 01:10:47,880 --> 01:10:52,280 But to make everything play sometimes you have to take away from them and reduce their 881 01:10:52,280 --> 01:10:57,250 margin to be able to let somebody else survive if you will. 882 01:10:57,250 --> 01:11:04,250 It is not an easy thing, but attention to that detail is important. 883 01:11:09,000 --> 01:11:13,270 Maintaining strong systems engineering group is important for that reason. 884 01:11:13,270 --> 01:11:19,820 If I have a lot of pretty dominant subsystem managers that say I am building a power system 885 01:11:19,820 --> 01:11:26,370 and I need this much weight and I need this much thermal capability that's good, and they 886 01:11:26,370 --> 01:11:31,390 may be very good, but what they are doing is if you have a lot of dominant subsystems 887 01:11:31,390 --> 01:11:36,800 and no central systems engineering, as traffic cop there is no check and balance. 888 01:11:36,800 --> 01:11:43,370 And so that dominant thing may work very well at the expense of the integrated performance 889 01:11:43,370 --> 01:11:44,170 of everybody else. 890 01:11:44,170 --> 01:11:51,170 That is why systems engineering is so important, that dominance and to balance weakness where 891 01:11:51,350 --> 01:11:57,230 you have weakness. 892 01:11:57,230 --> 01:12:04,230 And for Chandra hard work pays off when you get it right. 893 01:12:08,040 --> 01:12:09,860 Technology. 894 01:12:09,860 --> 01:12:16,860 A lot of times NASA will build a science spacecraft. 895 01:12:17,270 --> 01:12:22,110 And the spacecraft itself usually isn't pushing a state of the art. 896 01:12:22,110 --> 01:12:23,730 For Chandra it was a little different. 897 01:12:23,730 --> 01:12:28,010 We pushed the mirrors, and there are a few other things we pushed. 898 01:12:28,010 --> 01:12:33,350 But typically it is the case where NASA pushes the state of the art on the instruments. 899 01:12:33,350 --> 01:12:37,140 Better sensors, better CCDs, better processing electronics. 900 01:12:37,140 --> 01:12:40,390 And Chandra was no different. 901 01:12:40,390 --> 01:12:45,910 Usually it is an embellishment from something that has flown before on a different spacecraft, 902 01:12:45,910 --> 01:12:47,050 only now it is better. 903 01:12:47,050 --> 01:12:48,230 We are getting it bigger. 904 01:12:48,230 --> 01:12:51,830 We are getting more resolution. 905 01:12:51,830 --> 01:12:55,340 It takes less power. 906 01:12:55,340 --> 01:12:58,230 There is usually a steppingstone. 907 01:12:58,230 --> 01:13:05,230 And for ASIS, the one that was built at MIT, it charged a couple of devices in an array 908 01:13:06,110 --> 01:13:08,830 size that they have never been built before. 909 01:13:08,830 --> 01:13:10,960 And so that was a challenge. 910 01:13:10,960 --> 01:13:17,809 Also a challenge was in order for the CCDs to operate they needed to be cooled to minus 911 01:13:17,809 --> 01:13:24,210 100 degrees Celsius, 120. 912 01:13:24,210 --> 01:13:31,210 And, in addition, they developed a new way of clocking out the data from the rest of 913 01:13:32,710 --> 01:13:35,780 the CCDs that have been built. 914 01:13:35,780 --> 01:13:41,750 That had better spectroscopy performance and a very low noise signal chain. 915 01:13:41,750 --> 01:13:48,160 There are always going and they are always looking at, well, on spacecraft X this CCD 916 01:13:48,160 --> 01:13:48,750 was flown. 917 01:13:48,750 --> 01:13:51,140 It may have been a 512 x 512. 918 01:13:51,140 --> 01:13:52,580 Well, you know, it is pretty easy. 919 01:13:52,580 --> 01:13:57,600 I can stretch it a little bit and work the substrate in 24 x 24. 920 01:13:57,600 --> 01:14:00,920 Well, usually it is the case where it is not as simple as you think. 921 01:14:00,920 --> 01:14:06,290 And there are always problems. 922 01:14:06,290 --> 01:14:11,170 In particular, technology should be a warning flag to systems engineers to say typically 923 01:14:11,170 --> 01:14:18,170 it is not as simple as you think so make sure you are paying attention to these new developments 924 01:14:18,270 --> 01:14:24,400 or these stretching of new applications of existing technology. 925 01:14:24,400 --> 01:14:31,400 Because, for instance, one of the things that you get bit by, and we got bit by is radiation 926 01:14:32,600 --> 01:14:35,059 susceptibility. 927 01:14:35,059 --> 01:14:41,140 Thermal extremes for multilayer circuit cards that have to operate at minus 120 C on one 928 01:14:41,140 --> 01:14:45,690 end and room temperature on another end. 929 01:14:45,690 --> 01:14:48,120 Low yields for those new types of CCDs. 930 01:14:48,120 --> 01:14:55,120 I can just stretch it and make it 1024 x 1024, but where I was using 90% of the batch, now 931 01:14:55,710 --> 01:15:02,450 I am only using 10% just because I cannot get one that big to work out and to be smooth 932 01:15:02,450 --> 01:15:05,740 and homogenous. 933 01:15:05,740 --> 01:15:09,020 ESD sensitivity. 934 01:15:09,020 --> 01:15:14,510 Because they are getting bigger and bigger and thinner and thinner it is much more susceptible 935 01:15:14,510 --> 01:15:16,750 to electrostatic discharge. 936 01:15:16,750 --> 01:15:23,750 And simple things like my yield in the wintertime, because the humidity in the air is lower, 937 01:15:27,390 --> 01:15:30,890 I have less of a yield in winter than I do in summer. 938 01:15:30,890 --> 01:15:34,450 And so that is what we found out. 939 01:15:34,450 --> 01:15:40,040 And there are also mitigating effects that you can come and put humidifiers in and compensate 940 01:15:40,040 --> 01:15:41,460 for that. 941 01:15:41,460 --> 01:15:45,970 But those are the types of things that you have to worry about that can come and bite 942 01:15:45,970 --> 01:15:52,970 you with new technology because you are doing something new. 943 01:15:53,460 --> 01:15:59,410 Because of going down to 120 to optimize the performance and to get the very low noise, 944 01:15:59,410 --> 01:16:02,650 we said we need a radiator or a sunshade. 945 01:16:02,650 --> 01:16:09,650 And, low and behold, flying on the Shuttle in certain attitudes that you have to verify, 946 01:16:11,050 --> 01:16:18,050 because in some off nominal events you can, instead of being deployed on day one of a 947 01:16:19,790 --> 01:16:26,790 mission you get deployed on day three, but you have to go across the sun terminator frequently 948 01:16:27,650 --> 01:16:32,520 and you get a little glint of direct sunlight on these sunshades. 949 01:16:32,520 --> 01:16:37,040 And, therefore, you have to analyze what the temperature extreme and what the effect is 950 01:16:37,040 --> 01:16:37,480 going to be. 951 01:16:37,480 --> 01:16:41,780 And, low and behold, we see that we have delamination on that case. 952 01:16:41,780 --> 01:16:48,040 But here is a case where it is an off nominal event in the Shuttle that we have to design 953 01:16:48,040 --> 01:16:52,290 for and we have to compensate for, even though chances are we will never see that design 954 01:16:52,290 --> 01:16:55,150 case. 955 01:16:55,150 --> 01:17:02,150 But a lot of times the programmer or project manager has to say I am going to suck it up 956 01:17:03,780 --> 01:17:07,580 and I am going to make the change for that small eventuality. 957 01:17:07,580 --> 01:17:14,580 Or I am going to risk it based on cost and we are going to try and preclude that eventuality 958 01:17:15,860 --> 01:17:17,920 from happening. 959 01:17:17,920 --> 01:17:20,480 A lot of times it is not cut and dry. 960 01:17:20,480 --> 01:17:21,340 It is a guessing game. 961 01:17:21,340 --> 01:17:25,230 It is a balance that is based on judgment, past performance and a lot of other factors 962 01:17:25,230 --> 01:17:32,230 to say, boy, that is so low probability of occurrence that I am not going to worry about 963 01:17:36,090 --> 01:17:36,559 it. 964 01:17:36,559 --> 01:17:39,550 And that threshold is never defined. 965 01:17:39,550 --> 01:17:46,550 You have to define it as a project manager. 966 01:17:48,330 --> 01:17:51,150 Just kind of a picture of what the instruments look like. 967 01:17:51,150 --> 01:17:52,690 There are the CCDs. 968 01:17:52,690 --> 01:17:54,900 This is the long stretched away. 969 01:17:54,900 --> 01:18:01,900 And, for the spectroscopy measurements, that is where the lower energies -- Actually, the 970 01:18:03,480 --> 01:18:08,980 higher energies in the middle and the lower energies go along this wing and along this 971 01:18:08,980 --> 01:18:12,020 wing because you get the energy spread. 972 01:18:12,020 --> 01:18:19,020 And there are the imaging devices that are used when you just want a good image. 973 01:18:20,000 --> 01:18:24,710 On HRC, there is the detector right there in this diamond-shaped thing. 974 01:18:24,710 --> 01:18:31,370 And it is operating off a completely new and older technology than the CCDs. 975 01:18:31,370 --> 01:18:38,370 The instrument of choice has been this for probably 70%, 75% of the observations just 976 01:18:40,210 --> 01:18:46,900 because of the capability that this allows you not just an image, but the CCDs also give 977 01:18:46,900 --> 01:18:51,020 you some rudimentary information on energy. 978 01:18:51,020 --> 01:18:58,020 And so, that is why this is preferable over this one. 979 01:19:02,150 --> 01:19:05,559 On HRC, we talked about ASIS. 980 01:19:05,559 --> 01:19:09,760 We had, again, a low noise signal chain. 981 01:19:09,760 --> 01:19:14,440 On HRC, we never had three micro channel plates tied together and linked together. 982 01:19:14,440 --> 01:19:16,370 And we had that challenge. 983 01:19:16,370 --> 01:19:18,930 We also had very accurate event timing. 984 01:19:18,930 --> 01:19:25,930 So, when we have a pulsar, I know exactly in registered time when those pulses are occurring. 985 01:19:30,180 --> 01:19:37,180 We had spacecraft charging protection for new technology problems and spurious noise 986 01:19:37,260 --> 01:19:38,809 susceptibility. 987 01:19:38,809 --> 01:19:41,190 Spacecraft charging. 988 01:19:41,190 --> 01:19:48,190 To keep the mirrors nice and warm at plus or minus half a degree C across the entire 989 01:19:48,960 --> 01:19:54,710 mirror surface all around it required thermal blankets on the outside. 990 01:19:54,710 --> 01:20:01,090 Well, the thermal blankets were susceptible to charging up and discharge with popping. 991 01:20:01,090 --> 01:20:08,090 And so, the question is, is that going to affect my instrument performance by incorrectly 992 01:20:09,070 --> 01:20:14,350 registering a photon event every time these blankets discharged? 993 01:20:14,350 --> 01:20:21,210 So we had to go through a test campaign to verify that, no, this discharging of those 994 01:20:21,210 --> 01:20:28,210 blanket electrostatically would not affect the imaging performance at the detector level. 995 01:20:29,630 --> 01:20:31,330 That is something we didn't even think about before. 996 01:20:31,330 --> 01:20:35,240 But, low and behold, we came up with it. 997 01:20:35,240 --> 01:20:40,790 Yes, these things are going to discharge, they are going to pop so is it going to affect 998 01:20:40,790 --> 01:20:41,650 our measurements. 999 01:20:41,650 --> 01:20:48,650 Those are the kinds of things that you will run into. 1000 01:20:52,270 --> 01:20:56,020 Again, good systems engineering and sound communications are the key to getting through 1001 01:20:56,020 --> 01:20:57,790 those. 1002 01:20:57,790 --> 01:20:59,830 Insuring participating. 1003 01:20:59,830 --> 01:21:02,080 Keeping parties informed. 1004 01:21:02,080 --> 01:21:09,080 Encouraging teamwork to be part of the team and to help contribute to its success. 1005 01:21:10,320 --> 01:21:16,230 Lesson learned is establish standing interface working groups with mandatory participation 1006 01:21:16,230 --> 01:21:17,040 from the SIs. 1007 01:21:17,040 --> 01:21:19,150 The SIs kind of have a different paradigm. 1008 01:21:19,150 --> 01:21:25,080 Science instruments are usually built by universities, and the universities are typically staffed 1009 01:21:25,080 --> 01:21:32,080 by grad students and some full time engineers. 1010 01:21:32,400 --> 01:21:38,809 But usually the paradigm and the thinking process is a university atmosphere. 1011 01:21:38,809 --> 01:21:45,580 When you have companies it is a completely different interface, very regimented, very 1012 01:21:45,580 --> 01:21:49,100 by the book, we have done it before and this is how you do it. 1013 01:21:49,100 --> 01:21:54,270 And so different cultures, you have to make sure they blend together to produce the final 1014 01:21:54,270 --> 01:21:55,420 product. 1015 01:21:55,420 --> 01:21:57,059 And a lot of times that is not technical. 1016 01:21:57,059 --> 01:22:04,059 That is human interaction and making sure they all work together. 1017 01:22:07,080 --> 01:22:13,100 When problems occur recognize that you need to go outside of the project office to get 1018 01:22:13,100 --> 01:22:14,520 help. 1019 01:22:14,520 --> 01:22:16,980 And this is typically done at NASA. 1020 01:22:16,980 --> 01:22:23,980 If Marshall is managing a project and we have got a problem with CCDs, the key to success 1021 01:22:27,890 --> 01:22:32,790 is recognize, well, Ames Research Center in California has an expert in CCDs. 1022 01:22:32,790 --> 01:22:38,020 Call him up on the phone or bring him down and let's talk to him to get his expertise 1023 01:22:38,020 --> 01:22:39,580 in on this project. 1024 01:22:39,580 --> 01:22:41,150 NASA does good on that. 1025 01:22:41,150 --> 01:22:44,809 It does go to where the expertise is. 1026 01:22:44,809 --> 01:22:49,600 Not just at another NASA center, but it may call experts across the industry or across 1027 01:22:49,600 --> 01:22:52,350 academia to come help with a problem. 1028 01:22:52,350 --> 01:22:59,340 The foam problem on the Shuttle is a pretty big problem, and we have called experts from 1029 01:22:59,340 --> 01:23:01,840 around the country and around the world to try and help understand what was going on 1030 01:23:01,840 --> 01:23:05,050 with the foam. 1031 01:23:05,050 --> 01:23:09,280 That is something that NASA does well, is it brings in experts and it doesn't think 1032 01:23:09,280 --> 01:23:12,130 that it knows everything locally. 1033 01:23:12,130 --> 01:23:14,150 And that is something to keep in mind. 1034 01:23:14,150 --> 01:23:17,070 If you don't know an answer, don't just try and think of it yourself. 1035 01:23:17,070 --> 01:23:22,600 Go get the answers from somebody who might have experienced that before. 1036 01:23:22,600 --> 01:23:24,430 And encourage teamwork. 1037 01:23:24,430 --> 01:23:30,790 A lot of times programs suffer from the culture clash between different paradigms and different 1038 01:23:30,790 --> 01:23:31,040 cultures. And that is especially the case between academia and industry. 1039 01:23:36,690 --> 01:23:43,690 It is also evident between international partners and industry. 1040 01:23:47,170 --> 01:23:54,170 And, of course, the payoff is this is a spectrogram, the counts per bin, number of photons per 1041 01:23:54,910 --> 01:23:55,809 energy level. 1042 01:23:55,809 --> 01:24:02,809 And, as you can tell, very sharp and very well-defined peaks for where those lines are. 1043 01:24:18,000 --> 01:24:20,920 Next challenge was integrated testing. 1044 01:24:20,920 --> 01:24:24,920 Integration is always a challenge. 1045 01:24:24,920 --> 01:24:27,460 How in the world are we going to integrate this whole thing? 1046 01:24:27,460 --> 01:24:32,670 The logistics of who does what when, we must choreograph it. 1047 01:24:32,670 --> 01:24:34,960 Here we have instrument A coming in. 1048 01:24:34,960 --> 01:24:36,190 We have instrument B. 1049 01:24:36,190 --> 01:24:38,520 We have the gratings coming in. 1050 01:24:38,520 --> 01:24:42,059 We have the ISIM built at Ball Brothers. 1051 01:24:42,059 --> 01:24:45,600 We have California building the optical bench. 1052 01:24:45,600 --> 01:24:51,440 Where are we all going to put this all together and test it out? 1053 01:24:51,440 --> 01:24:56,100 That is always a challenge because, again, you have different players involved in different 1054 01:24:56,100 --> 01:24:57,190 pieces. 1055 01:24:57,190 --> 01:24:59,370 And you have got to make sure it all plays together. 1056 01:24:59,370 --> 01:25:06,300 And the key there is to create a working group to make sure you address every aspect of integration. 1057 01:25:06,300 --> 01:25:08,080 You plan very much ahead of time. 1058 01:25:08,080 --> 01:25:15,080 You choreograph everybody coming in to make sure you have got everything covered. 1059 01:25:16,120 --> 01:25:23,050 And in integration always, always it takes longer than you think. 1060 01:25:23,050 --> 01:25:26,650 You always plan assuming nothing is going to go wrong. 1061 01:25:26,650 --> 01:25:31,990 This test takes this long and this test takes this long and this test takes this long. 1062 01:25:31,990 --> 01:25:37,309 When, in fact, as is always the case, you always have problems in testing. 1063 01:25:37,309 --> 01:25:44,309 Any time you are matching two boxes together, especially electronically, a lot of times 1064 01:25:45,370 --> 01:25:46,530 you have problems. 1065 01:25:46,530 --> 01:25:52,980 So testing is always something that you should make sure you have enough time to do troubleshooting. 1066 01:25:52,980 --> 01:25:59,980 And plan for failures and not plan a success-oriented schedule. 1067 01:26:05,780 --> 01:26:12,330 Even the best laid plans, TRW planned the integrated testing in a vacuum chamber. 1068 01:26:12,330 --> 01:26:19,330 And during observatory integration TRW couldn't hold the schedule because, guess what, the 1069 01:26:20,400 --> 01:26:26,390 first thing that goes when you are in a money crunch is testing at the end. 1070 01:26:26,390 --> 01:26:28,040 And you say why do that? 1071 01:26:28,040 --> 01:26:35,040 Because they say we had six months of margin in the schedule and you have eroded that margin. 1072 01:26:37,170 --> 01:26:40,480 But that margin you haven't really defined anything to go into that margin. 1073 01:26:40,480 --> 01:26:46,150 So, hypothetically speaking, if everything goes OK, I don't need that. 1074 01:26:46,150 --> 01:26:50,760 Well, so you take it off the table and it gets eaten away. 1075 01:26:50,760 --> 01:26:51,809 And that is what happened. 1076 01:26:51,809 --> 01:26:58,460 It got eaten away and couldn't hold schedule caused, in this case, by antiquated EGSE and 1077 01:26:58,460 --> 01:26:59,059 software. 1078 01:26:59,059 --> 01:27:03,820 But it is typical of a paradigm that says I create schedule, you have got to try and 1079 01:27:03,820 --> 01:27:08,670 preserve this schedule and fight tooth and nail to keep that reserve in every step of 1080 01:27:08,670 --> 01:27:14,530 the way because in integration test is where usually you get behind. 1081 01:27:14,530 --> 01:27:20,059 When we got behind the recovery is daily focus on schedule. 1082 01:27:20,059 --> 01:27:25,130 Every day we were on the phone going over what was to occur that day. 1083 01:27:25,130 --> 01:27:32,130 24 hour operations one year before launch continuing all the way around the clock. 1084 01:27:33,260 --> 01:27:37,380 We changed the I&T integration and test lead out at TRW. 1085 01:27:37,380 --> 01:27:43,140 We brought Marshall NASA engineers into help TRW do it. 1086 01:27:43,140 --> 01:27:49,840 And we had a technical presence help out at the test site. 1087 01:27:49,840 --> 01:27:53,650 We have a contractor, we hire a contractor and the contractor is supposed to do the job. 1088 01:27:53,650 --> 01:27:56,340 And, low and behold, the contractor is not doing the job. 1089 01:27:56,340 --> 01:28:01,720 So we could take a step back and say whack them on the head, you are not doing the job. 1090 01:28:01,720 --> 01:28:05,780 Or, you can go in and say we have got to get this job done. 1091 01:28:05,780 --> 01:28:09,280 We are going to go and we are going to send folks over there that are technical folks 1092 01:28:09,280 --> 01:28:15,280 that will help your guys work these problems and work the issues and work the integration 1093 01:28:15,280 --> 01:28:15,940 and get this thing done. 1094 01:28:15,940 --> 01:28:20,630 And so, that is what we did. 1095 01:28:20,630 --> 01:28:22,290 That is kind of a typical schedule. 1096 01:28:22,290 --> 01:28:26,210 We have a Comprehensive Acceptance Test. 1097 01:28:26,210 --> 01:28:29,110 That is just a functional test going through all of the paces. 1098 01:28:29,110 --> 01:28:36,110 EMI is your kind of electrical susceptibility to noise. 1099 01:28:37,320 --> 01:28:44,320 When you have a palm pilot or a cell phone and it is near a computer or near some device 1100 01:28:44,730 --> 01:28:46,610 you hear this chattering. 1101 01:28:46,610 --> 01:28:52,890 That is what that test is all about to look at interference patterns and look at whether 1102 01:28:52,890 --> 01:28:56,380 you are susceptible to noise. 1103 01:28:56,380 --> 01:28:57,620 We have an end-to-end test. 1104 01:28:57,620 --> 01:28:59,490 That is where we get a compatibility van. 1105 01:28:59,490 --> 01:29:06,220 And we make sure that we can communicate with the deep space network dishes in Goldstone 1106 01:29:06,220 --> 01:29:09,270 and Madrid and Canberra. 1107 01:29:09,270 --> 01:29:14,900 That is our pointing at control systems polarity test. 1108 01:29:14,900 --> 01:29:19,840 Did we mount the gyro correctly or is it upside down? 1109 01:29:19,840 --> 01:29:22,570 Did we mount the reaction wheel correctly? 1110 01:29:22,570 --> 01:29:26,220 Do I have the spin vector pointed this way or pointed that way? 1111 01:29:26,220 --> 01:29:31,740 You think that is pretty simple but, in fact, on the box it doesn't say arrow pointing up. 1112 01:29:31,740 --> 01:29:35,270 You have to actually test it out. 1113 01:29:35,270 --> 01:29:38,860 And NASA has screwed it up before. 1114 01:29:38,860 --> 01:29:41,880 We do an acoustic test and then a pyroshock test. 1115 01:29:41,880 --> 01:29:48,880 Acoustic is you blast it with acoustic noise and the noise couples and creates vibrations, 1116 01:29:48,920 --> 01:29:54,170 especially you are worried about thin films and large surface areas that are exposed to 1117 01:29:54,170 --> 01:29:56,820 the noise pattern, the wave front. 1118 01:29:56,820 --> 01:30:00,840 So we painted the whole spacecraft with a huge woofer. 1119 01:30:00,840 --> 01:30:04,240 I mean it was enormous. 1120 01:30:04,240 --> 01:30:10,350 Just to see the vibration and what would happen to make sure that it was OK. 1121 01:30:10,350 --> 01:30:14,870 And we have the solar ray full motion test and the low gain antenna release test. 1122 01:30:14,870 --> 01:30:20,880 We have mechanisms which are typically things that fail a lot or don't operate the way you 1123 01:30:20,880 --> 01:30:22,550 thought. 1124 01:30:22,550 --> 01:30:27,370 We want to test those hopefully in the environment that they would see in orbit. 1125 01:30:27,370 --> 01:30:33,730 That means if it is cold, if it is exposed to a plasma we want to try and duplicate that 1126 01:30:33,730 --> 01:30:35,590 on the ground. 1127 01:30:35,590 --> 01:30:37,460 Typically, that is what we do with mechanisms. 1128 01:30:37,460 --> 01:30:37,710 Yeah. 1129 01:30:37,550 --> 01:30:44,550 I was wondering if you had like a separate satellite that was forecasting and they kind 1130 01:30:45,500 --> 01:30:50,910 of knew that [NOISE OBSCURES]. 1131 01:30:50,910 --> 01:30:53,070 Good question. 1132 01:30:53,070 --> 01:30:57,809 Typically, in the old days, when we had a lot of money, we would build what is called 1133 01:30:57,809 --> 01:31:03,990 a qualification article which is basically a test article for the whole thing. 1134 01:31:03,990 --> 01:31:08,450 And the qualification article would match one for one the flight unit. 1135 01:31:08,450 --> 01:31:12,300 And we would test the heck out of that qualification article. 1136 01:31:12,300 --> 01:31:15,860 Nowadays, with money problems, typically we don't do that. 1137 01:31:15,860 --> 01:31:21,690 For selected components where we are worried about the design, we will develop a qualification 1138 01:31:21,690 --> 01:31:23,890 article at the element level. 1139 01:31:23,890 --> 01:31:30,360 But typically we don't do it with whole spacecraft, not anymore. 1140 01:31:30,360 --> 01:31:35,190 Although, the one exception to that is the structural test article. 1141 01:31:35,190 --> 01:31:42,190 Usually spacecraft do build a structural test article that does look like the final flight 1142 01:31:42,190 --> 01:31:44,260 design from the overall structure. 1143 01:31:44,260 --> 01:31:50,610 And you get your mode shapes and your frequencies when you ring it and see how it performs. 1144 01:31:50,610 --> 01:31:53,780 And you fold that back into your analysis. 1145 01:31:53,780 --> 01:32:00,780 But that is probably the only case where you build a full test article for structural purposes. 1146 01:32:00,800 --> 01:32:03,140 It would be nice if we could do that. 1147 01:32:03,140 --> 01:32:08,820 The DOD does that when they have a production of a thousand units, but NASA nowadays cannot 1148 01:32:08,820 --> 01:32:13,450 afford to build a whole complex ground test article. 1149 01:32:13,450 --> 01:32:17,050 It would be nice but sometimes we just cannot do it. 1150 01:32:17,050 --> 01:32:24,050 We will do it on a selected element level. 1151 01:32:25,050 --> 01:32:27,630 Hardly ever testing to failure. 1152 01:32:27,630 --> 01:32:34,210 We talked about that with the Shuttle because JR Thompson was pointing out, like with the 1153 01:32:34,210 --> 01:32:38,670 main engines, testing to failure was really critical for success. 1154 01:32:38,670 --> 01:32:44,650 But, remember, that is a very different operating situation than a satellite where normally 1155 01:32:44,650 --> 01:32:50,690 if the satellite can survive launch and the vibration, and the vibration is tested, the 1156 01:32:50,690 --> 01:32:57,690 structural, you know, if that survives then the operating environment is a lot more benign. 1157 01:32:58,170 --> 01:33:04,980 Now, what do, though, is we compensate for not testing to failure by testing with two 1158 01:33:04,980 --> 01:33:09,900 our expected flight environment plus margin. 1159 01:33:09,900 --> 01:33:15,400 Analytically, or based on previous data, we determine what the environment is going to 1160 01:33:15,400 --> 01:33:15,720 be. 1161 01:33:15,720 --> 01:33:19,550 And we will add margin to that and we will test to those margins. 1162 01:33:19,550 --> 01:33:23,330 Most times we do pretty well. 1163 01:33:23,330 --> 01:33:28,820 Sometimes we don't, but that is probably few and far between. 1164 01:33:28,820 --> 01:33:34,220 And we have learned, after 40 years, of how to apply margin to our best analysis or our 1165 01:33:34,220 --> 01:33:40,360 best tools that define what the environment is going to be. 1166 01:33:40,360 --> 01:33:47,360 So that kind of shows you starting in October '87, ending April '98, that was the plan. 1167 01:33:49,630 --> 01:33:55,770 We actually took about nine months more than what you see there because of all the problems 1168 01:33:55,770 --> 01:34:00,650 that we had. 1169 01:34:00,650 --> 01:34:06,870 A key point is when you are pressed for time do not cut corners. 1170 01:34:06,870 --> 01:34:10,870 We did review all the testing and we did not delete any testing that we considered was 1171 01:34:10,870 --> 01:34:12,340 mandatory. 1172 01:34:12,340 --> 01:34:17,840 And, in fact, we added systems testing to verify that we had total system performance 1173 01:34:17,840 --> 01:34:20,150 that we knew what this thing was going to do. 1174 01:34:20,150 --> 01:34:27,150 We also added some end-to-end testing in thermal vac and added much more end-to-end testing 1175 01:34:28,860 --> 01:34:31,460 with the control center that will eventually operate. 1176 01:34:31,460 --> 01:34:36,880 A lot of times you have, in the integration and test time, a different set of engineers 1177 01:34:36,880 --> 01:34:41,050 testing this than will actually operate it in flight. 1178 01:34:41,050 --> 01:34:42,420 Probably not a good idea. 1179 01:34:42,420 --> 01:34:48,990 What you really want is to get your operators in flight operating and testing early enough 1180 01:34:48,990 --> 01:34:55,460 that they can go through all of the gyrations of the testing environment and all of the 1181 01:34:55,460 --> 01:35:00,500 idiosyncrasies of the hardware before flight so that they are trained on the hardware and 1182 01:35:00,500 --> 01:35:03,920 they know how the hardware performs. 1183 01:35:03,920 --> 01:35:10,740 And so, if you can, you want to try and get the operators to do the testing prior to launch. 1184 01:35:10,740 --> 01:35:16,969 And a lot of times that isn't the case, unfortunately. 1185 01:35:16,969 --> 01:35:17,320 Lesson learned. 1186 01:35:17,320 --> 01:35:23,670 Try to keep one integrated database along that theme of the Control Center for testing 1187 01:35:23,670 --> 01:35:29,110 and operations because what you don't want to do is to have a database for testing that 1188 01:35:29,110 --> 01:35:33,900 then you discard and you create a separate database for operations. 1189 01:35:33,900 --> 01:35:39,900 It is much better to have one database so that you know what the parameters are. 1190 01:35:39,900 --> 01:35:43,590 And, once you have verified them in test, they are the same parameters that you are 1191 01:35:43,590 --> 01:35:46,910 using in flight. 1192 01:35:46,910 --> 01:35:53,910 Also, to define an explicit test and integration lead, review the approach, encourage end-to-end 1193 01:35:55,080 --> 01:35:59,900 testing participations of the operations group early and often and, if you can, get the operations 1194 01:35:59,900 --> 01:36:06,780 group at the Control Center to run the tests. 1195 01:36:06,780 --> 01:36:11,610 And give adequate time for box level testing and data system integrated testing. 1196 01:36:11,610 --> 01:36:16,510 A lot of times what will happen is you're running late on schedule and at the box level 1197 01:36:16,510 --> 01:36:18,300 I have a multiplexer. 1198 01:36:18,300 --> 01:36:23,690 And I had scheduled, at the box level, probably 300 hours worth of testing. 1199 01:36:23,690 --> 01:36:25,070 Well, you know what, I am running late. 1200 01:36:25,070 --> 01:36:28,120 They are wanting me at the spacecraft level. 1201 01:36:28,120 --> 01:36:29,540 Well, let me jip it up now. 1202 01:36:29,540 --> 01:36:33,030 It has only had 50 hours but now I am going to the spacecraft. 1203 01:36:33,030 --> 01:36:39,500 Low and behold, now what you have just done is you have moved the problem further on downstream 1204 01:36:39,500 --> 01:36:42,840 when it is much more expensive and it costs you a lot more money. 1205 01:36:42,840 --> 01:36:47,100 When I have a problem in integrated testing, guess what? 1206 01:36:47,100 --> 01:36:52,240 The whole spacecraft stops until I fix this box. 1207 01:36:52,240 --> 01:36:57,309 If you can, try and do it so that you have got enough margin that you can test at the 1208 01:36:57,309 --> 01:37:04,309 small box level in parallel with all of the other boxes before you get to integrated testing. 1209 01:37:11,940 --> 01:37:12,190 Management. 1210 01:37:12,130 --> 01:37:14,630 There were plenty of challenges in the management. 1211 01:37:14,630 --> 01:37:18,770 And a term used is unknown unknowns. 1212 01:37:18,770 --> 01:37:23,980 We didn't know at the time that money was going to be a problem with program restructuring. 1213 01:37:23,980 --> 01:37:26,800 You don't know that you are going to have an integration delay. 1214 01:37:26,800 --> 01:37:30,840 There are a lot of things that you really don't know. 1215 01:37:30,840 --> 01:37:34,040 But, nonetheless, you have to expect for and you have to plan for. 1216 01:37:34,040 --> 01:37:38,830 That is why, at the beginning of a project, you create what is called reserve resources. 1217 01:37:38,830 --> 01:37:45,830 In terms of cost, depending on the nature of the complexity, the technology push, you 1218 01:37:46,210 --> 01:37:51,420 may have 20% to 30% of cost held in reserve. 1219 01:37:51,420 --> 01:37:55,280 Not applied anywhere because you don't know where the problems are going to occur. 1220 01:37:55,280 --> 01:38:01,990 And you try, as a project manager, to hold onto that by tooth and nail and not release 1221 01:38:01,990 --> 01:38:08,990 it if you can at all and only grudgingly allow reserves to be used. 1222 01:38:13,820 --> 01:38:18,610 Approach to success in that kind of environment is experience, getting top management that 1223 01:38:18,610 --> 01:38:23,260 has background and experience, working closely with the science community. 1224 01:38:23,260 --> 01:38:25,010 Again, focusing on teamwork. 1225 01:38:25,010 --> 01:38:28,780 You will see that as a recurring theme. 1226 01:38:28,780 --> 01:38:33,570 Hold enough reserves so that when you are scoping out and you've got a lot of unknowns 1227 01:38:33,570 --> 01:38:40,570 that you have enough money and time to do that. 1228 01:38:41,170 --> 01:38:48,040 Set it as high priority for the company or the organization that you are working for 1229 01:38:48,040 --> 01:38:53,740 and set the schedule early and balance the need for maintaining schedule with the need 1230 01:38:53,740 --> 01:39:00,740 to slow down and understand what your problems are rather than racing to the finish line. 1231 01:39:05,320 --> 01:39:08,250 Again, these are some of the good lessons learned. 1232 01:39:08,250 --> 01:39:14,219 In fact, I just covered that one. 1233 01:39:14,219 --> 01:39:21,219 This is what it ended up being, the AXAF Schedule starting around calendar year '92 with our 1234 01:39:22,300 --> 01:39:22,860 SRR. 1235 01:39:22,860 --> 01:39:27,840 There is our PDR and there is our CDR. 1236 01:39:27,840 --> 01:39:31,940 And the launch is even off the chart. 1237 01:39:31,940 --> 01:39:37,430 But that is typically the kind of things that we go through, including in parallel your 1238 01:39:37,430 --> 01:39:44,430 Control Center development back down here. 1239 01:39:46,800 --> 01:39:49,490 There is a mirror. 1240 01:39:49,490 --> 01:39:54,830 All of this will be posted. 1241 01:39:54,830 --> 01:39:59,000 I mean these are really valuable lessons. 1242 01:39:59,000 --> 01:40:06,000 In fact, any of you who eventually go into systems engineering and project management 1243 01:40:06,040 --> 01:40:08,070 take some of these lessons learned with you. 1244 01:40:08,070 --> 01:40:08,990 Print them out and review them periodically. 1245 01:40:08,990 --> 01:40:13,440 And remember them. 1246 01:40:13,440 --> 01:40:14,740 They are lessons of hard knocks. 1247 01:40:14,740 --> 01:40:21,740 What I am doing is now is I am now the project manager for a project or a mission called 1248 01:40:21,809 --> 01:40:28,440 RLEP 2, which is Robotic Lunar Exploration Program. 1249 01:40:28,440 --> 01:40:33,980 And that mission will be the first mission that NASA has, in a long time, to land on 1250 01:40:33,980 --> 01:40:34,340 the Moon. 1251 01:40:34,340 --> 01:40:37,360 We are going to land the Lander. 1252 01:40:37,360 --> 01:40:44,360 And we are going to have some type of mobility device that will either drive into a crater 1253 01:40:45,940 --> 01:40:52,940 or hop into a crater or crawl into a crater or walk into a crater and look for lunar ice 1254 01:40:53,590 --> 01:40:57,910 that we think might be there at the South Pole. 1255 01:40:57,910 --> 01:41:04,910 Now, this is a great example of how things are done. 1256 01:41:04,920 --> 01:41:11,920 We are given a couple of requirements to say we want to verify our precision landing capability 1257 01:41:13,570 --> 01:41:18,969 in an unmanned sense, and we are going to use that technique and those algorithms for 1258 01:41:18,969 --> 01:41:22,559 the future human lander. 1259 01:41:22,559 --> 01:41:26,460 And we are also going to need you to go look at the ice. 1260 01:41:26,460 --> 01:41:31,460 Characterize it and see whether or not ice is there. 1261 01:41:31,460 --> 01:41:33,130 Now, why is ice so important? 1262 01:41:33,130 --> 01:41:37,500 Ice is important because of the oxygen that you can get from the ice. 1263 01:41:37,500 --> 01:41:44,500 And the oxygen is not so much to breathe but it is for fuel or for oxidizer for propulsion 1264 01:41:46,800 --> 01:41:47,740 systems. 1265 01:41:47,740 --> 01:41:52,090 Instead of getting it at the earth's gravity, well, you get it at the gravity well of the 1266 01:41:52,090 --> 01:41:53,030 Moon. 1267 01:41:53,030 --> 01:41:55,880 That is our challenge. 1268 01:41:55,880 --> 01:42:02,880 Now, when they asked that, NASA didn't exactly know what it would cost or what the cost profile 1269 01:42:06,170 --> 01:42:07,170 would be. 1270 01:42:07,170 --> 01:42:11,090 They originally designed it for a $400 million mission. 1271 01:42:11,090 --> 01:42:18,090 They said, well, why don't you look at a $750 million solution? 1272 01:42:19,580 --> 01:42:24,940 They don't know how many objectives we can meet. 1273 01:42:24,940 --> 01:42:31,559 This RLEP is supposed to be robotic lunar exploration. 1274 01:42:31,559 --> 01:42:38,490 It is really a precursor to the human missions, so they are not even sure how to use this 1275 01:42:38,490 --> 01:42:42,160 program to help bring humans there. 1276 01:42:42,160 --> 01:42:44,710 And so, this is typical. 1277 01:42:44,710 --> 01:42:50,780 NASA doesn't exactly know what it wants to do, but it kind of puts out feelers to say 1278 01:42:50,780 --> 01:42:51,340 try this. 1279 01:42:51,340 --> 01:42:58,340 It says go start with this, go touch the lunar surface, characterize precision landing and 1280 01:42:59,480 --> 01:43:01,590 go see if there is ice there. 1281 01:43:01,590 --> 01:43:05,320 Well, go see if there is ice there. 1282 01:43:05,320 --> 01:43:12,320 I can do that with one hop into the crater, one sample and hopefully, if the ice is there 1283 01:43:13,360 --> 01:43:14,469 I can find it. 1284 01:43:14,469 --> 01:43:21,469 Or, on the other extreme, I can go with a Rover, spend a year in the crater, take a 1285 01:43:22,219 --> 01:43:25,059 thousand measurements and characterize the ice. 1286 01:43:25,059 --> 01:43:30,500 Obviously, one cost a lot more than the other. 1287 01:43:30,500 --> 01:43:33,460 So how in the world do you answer that question? 1288 01:43:33,460 --> 01:43:37,580 Which one should you do and whether it should be a mix? 1289 01:43:37,580 --> 01:43:42,260 Those are the very things facing the project that I am working on now. 1290 01:43:42,260 --> 01:43:49,260 Not only that, one of the things is we are trying to get prepared for a human mission 1291 01:43:50,510 --> 01:43:55,170 and we want to reduce the overall cost and reduce the risk. 1292 01:43:55,170 --> 01:44:02,170 We would like to bring risk forward from the manned lunar mission into the RLEP program 1293 01:44:03,360 --> 01:44:06,610 and retire it in the robotics program. 1294 01:44:06,610 --> 01:44:12,490 What that means is if I have a technology challenge for a cryogenic engine, that means 1295 01:44:12,490 --> 01:44:19,490 a liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen engine for the lunar descent, I want to use that same 1296 01:44:19,969 --> 01:44:25,010 engine, if I can, on this mission to work out the kinks. 1297 01:44:25,010 --> 01:44:29,820 But how much is that worth to NASA? 1298 01:44:29,820 --> 01:44:36,820 If that cost an extra $100 million for RLEP is it worth it? 1299 01:44:38,800 --> 01:44:41,530 There is no set answer. 1300 01:44:41,530 --> 01:44:44,600 And so, what we are doing right now is what is called a pre-phase A. 1301 01:44:44,600 --> 01:44:49,700 Much like I showed you on Chandra where you had that initial design and a final design, 1302 01:44:49,700 --> 01:44:53,290 we propose to headquarters with one design. 1303 01:44:53,290 --> 01:44:54,809 It happened to have a Rover. 1304 01:44:54,809 --> 01:44:56,010 It was nuclear powered. 1305 01:44:56,010 --> 01:44:59,330 We went into the crater. 1306 01:44:59,330 --> 01:45:00,850 And we stayed there for quite a while. 1307 01:45:00,850 --> 01:45:05,570 And we definitely characterized what was there. 1308 01:45:05,570 --> 01:45:07,920 But it was expensive. 1309 01:45:07,920 --> 01:45:08,700 Is that the right answer? 1310 01:45:08,700 --> 01:45:11,070 We don't know. 1311 01:45:11,070 --> 01:45:17,070 We are right now going through a pre-phase A that we are looking at other options. 1312 01:45:17,070 --> 01:45:20,610 We are looking at kind of three classes of sizes. 1313 01:45:20,610 --> 01:45:23,420 Different solutions to get into the crater. 1314 01:45:23,420 --> 01:45:26,320 Different solutions on the size of the lander. 1315 01:45:26,320 --> 01:45:29,510 Its extensibility to the human mission. 1316 01:45:29,510 --> 01:45:36,510 Like, for instance, right now we use Russian progress vehicles to resupply Space Station. 1317 01:45:36,780 --> 01:45:43,780 We hope to design a robotic lander that would do the same thing during human missions. 1318 01:45:43,920 --> 01:45:50,920 It is not man rated, it won't fly men but it can fly supplies to the Moon with one design. 1319 01:45:52,570 --> 01:45:59,090 But that cost money because now I am not optimizing design for a point solution mission. 1320 01:45:59,090 --> 01:46:03,610 So during this timeframe there are a lot of unknown questions. 1321 01:46:03,610 --> 01:46:06,550 And the answers are not straightforward. 1322 01:46:06,550 --> 01:46:12,740 So what we are doing is we are giving a series of options and rationale and capabilities 1323 01:46:12,740 --> 01:46:14,780 for those options to headquarters. 1324 01:46:14,780 --> 01:46:20,230 And we will make a recommendation as to what we think is the best answer for NASA to go 1325 01:46:20,230 --> 01:46:23,580 forward with this design and here are the reasons. 1326 01:46:23,580 --> 01:46:29,710 But it could very well be that they choose something different because there is no definitive 1327 01:46:29,710 --> 01:46:35,420 solution to this problem or this challenge, if you will. 1328 01:46:35,420 --> 01:46:36,809 So it is very challenging. 1329 01:46:36,809 --> 01:46:41,620 It is going to look probably a lot different now than it will when we actually launch it 1330 01:46:41,620 --> 01:46:47,240 in 2010 or 2011, but it is something that we face now. 1331 01:46:47,240 --> 01:46:54,240 And it is more defined by how much money you can use versus what the requirements are. 1332 01:47:00,430 --> 01:47:06,340 Sometimes the requirements do set pretty much the basic tenets of the mission, but other 1333 01:47:06,340 --> 01:47:09,260 times it is driven by cost. 1334 01:47:09,260 --> 01:47:15,809 And so, right now we are in the middle of working that interesting and challenge problem 1335 01:47:15,809 --> 01:47:22,370 for headquarters to develop what we think that mission should look like. 1336 01:47:22,370 --> 01:47:25,590 And, as you can envision, you don't really have requirements. 1337 01:47:25,590 --> 01:47:27,719 You have a few requirements. 1338 01:47:27,719 --> 01:47:33,700 You have a desirability to reduce the overall cost and reduce the overall risk of a human 1339 01:47:33,700 --> 01:47:35,860 mission. 1340 01:47:35,860 --> 01:47:38,680 But that desirability comes with a cost. 1341 01:47:38,680 --> 01:47:44,670 The more extensible you get to the human mission, yes, you can make a big lander that gives 1342 01:47:44,670 --> 01:47:48,840 you 2,000 kilograms of payload, but it is going to cost you more. 1343 01:47:48,840 --> 01:47:55,840 I can make 1,000 kilograms of payload or 500 kilograms of payload and get the definition 1344 01:47:56,200 --> 01:47:57,660 of what is in the ice. 1345 01:47:57,660 --> 01:48:04,080 But then later on I will have to design a new lander for getting other things accomplished 1346 01:48:04,080 --> 01:48:05,980 that I want to get to on the Moon. 1347 01:48:05,980 --> 01:48:09,510 And is that the right answer? 1348 01:48:09,510 --> 01:48:15,070 You can tell that there are a lot of challenges with that? 1349 01:48:15,070 --> 01:48:15,660 Any questions? 1350 01:48:15,660 --> 01:48:20,760 We talked about the cost, performance and schedule triangle. 1351 01:48:20,760 --> 01:48:27,760 Do you have a sense, inside NASA, of how much they are pushing schedule at this point/ Where 1352 01:48:29,690 --> 01:48:33,740 is your flexibility? 1353 01:48:33,740 --> 01:48:39,740 In their solicitation to the centers, they allowed schedule flexibility. 1354 01:48:39,740 --> 01:48:41,330 They allowed cost flexibility. 1355 01:48:41,330 --> 01:48:48,330 Other programs I will say are generally more bounded than this one. 1356 01:48:49,070 --> 01:48:56,070 This one is a matter of NASA not knowing exactly what the reason and what the purpose of the 1357 01:48:56,760 --> 01:48:58,570 program is for. 1358 01:48:58,570 --> 01:49:05,160 You've got this general idea of going back to the Moon, using robots first to prepare 1359 01:49:05,160 --> 01:49:10,750 for humans, but exactly what does that mean and exactly how do you prepare for humans 1360 01:49:10,750 --> 01:49:14,420 and how much is it going to cost and when is it going to launch and how many missions 1361 01:49:14,420 --> 01:49:16,190 are you going to have? 1362 01:49:16,190 --> 01:49:17,610 They are all undefined. 1363 01:49:17,610 --> 01:49:23,920 Now, what we would do is we have already gone to the program that will fund the human missions 1364 01:49:23,920 --> 01:49:29,030 to say what do you guys plan to do and what do you want to do when you get there? 1365 01:49:29,030 --> 01:49:33,070 So we can take their mission design and say how can we help? 1366 01:49:33,070 --> 01:49:34,190 We can help here. 1367 01:49:34,190 --> 01:49:35,550 We can help here. 1368 01:49:35,550 --> 01:49:38,559 We can pull this technology forward and fly it. 1369 01:49:38,559 --> 01:49:42,110 The problem there is that they haven't thought that far ahead. 1370 01:49:42,110 --> 01:49:45,820 They don't know exactly what they are going to do. 1371 01:49:45,820 --> 01:49:51,410 And a lot of that is, is there ice there or not? 1372 01:49:51,410 --> 01:49:54,050 If there is ice there, we will want to process it. 1373 01:49:54,050 --> 01:49:58,690 We will want to extract oxygen from it. 1374 01:49:58,690 --> 01:50:02,780 As part of our solution, we do know that we have to answer that question. 1375 01:50:02,780 --> 01:50:07,809 We also do know that we do have to demonstrate precision landing. 1376 01:50:07,809 --> 01:50:13,990 But, above that, they have given us a target date of 2010 to 2011. 1377 01:50:13,990 --> 01:50:17,690 But they said schedule is not fixed. 1378 01:50:17,690 --> 01:50:22,880 They have given us a cost generally between $400 and $750 million. 1379 01:50:22,880 --> 01:50:28,730 And, by the way, if you can leverage areas of the budget to help your mission, do that, 1380 01:50:28,730 --> 01:50:30,190 in particular technology. 1381 01:50:30,190 --> 01:50:32,990 There is a separate technology budget. 1382 01:50:32,990 --> 01:50:39,170 If I can get technology to pay for a new technology development at no cost to the program then 1383 01:50:39,170 --> 01:50:42,790 I will do that. 1384 01:50:42,790 --> 01:50:49,790 And, again, if we come in and say we have $1 billion but it buys you $3 billion when 1385 01:50:52,110 --> 01:50:56,980 the crew is ready to come, we think that is worth the investment. 1386 01:50:56,980 --> 01:51:02,760 And then headquarters has to scratch their head and figure out whether it is really worth 1387 01:51:02,760 --> 01:51:09,650 minimizing the long-term cost versus the yearly constraint that they are given by Congress 1388 01:51:09,650 --> 01:51:14,960 and the pressures of Shuttle and the pressures of Stations on the overall cost of the program 1389 01:51:14,960 --> 01:51:16,469 to NASA. 1390 01:51:16,469 --> 01:51:20,070 It is real challenging. 1391 01:51:20,070 --> 01:51:21,770 It is a lot of fun. 1392 01:51:21,770 --> 01:51:23,430 We are going to have a blast. 1393 01:51:23,430 --> 01:51:29,090 The next one is going back to the Moon, and you will probably hear more about it in the 1394 01:51:29,090 --> 01:51:29,880 next couple of years. 1395 01:51:29,880 --> 01:51:31,969 OK. 1396 01:51:31,969 --> 01:51:36,150 Thank you. 1397 01:51:36,150 --> 01:51:38,250 [APPLAUSE] 1398 01:51:38,250 --> 01:51:42,230 This was really the last of the lectures on systems engineering per se. 1399 01:51:42,230 --> 01:51:45,830 Thursday is the last external lecture. 1400 01:51:45,830 --> 01:51:50,990 Gordon Fullerton will be talking about test flying the Shuttle. 1401 01:51:50,990 --> 01:51:57,990 And hopefully by then I will have the schedule for the presentations next Tuesday.