Approaching the Ides of March
posted by Gavin | 9:07 PM
It's been a busy couple of weeks. Jen's working the mission and it's coming along pretty well. They've had a few pieces of space junk to avoid, and that's about it. She gets home a little after midnight so I get to see her for about 5 minutes before we both fall asleep.
Carina is feeling better, after her 104+ deg fever over the weekend. She still has a runny nose, but, it's not very bad. Attention, oh unsuspecting world: she is now crawling! Last night she crawled 5 feet towards me in the kitchen while she was very unhappy and hungry. Tonight she was crawling around in the room upstairs, chasing the dogs and me. We've been trying to get the dogs ready for this over the last few weeks, and I think they're doing pretty well. Roxy let Carina climb a little on her without getting grumpy, and then Carina left her alone and went on to something else. Zoya's pretty gentle with her now too. We're also working with Carina to get her to softly pet the dogs, instead of fiercely grabbing their fur and skin.
No one likes the fierce grab. She's pretty strong!
My work is coming along. I'm splitting my time between the Mars Science Laboratory mission I've been working on since I graduated and the Orion capsule that we'll fly after we retire the Shuttle. For the Mars mission we've been spending time figuring out what crazy scenarios can break the entry guidance while it tries to get us within 10 km of the target, and how we can counter that without hamstringing the guidance. The desire is to have a robust guidance that still delivers the spacecraft to the target on both good days and bad days. Some of this is done in the flight software. Some of this is done in how we operate the spacecraft. Many of these ideas we've been carrying of for a few years but haven't had time to really start looking at them until now. Meanwhile, the project pushes forward with successful parachute tests in wind tunnels, with flight software being tested in thousands of simulations, and with flight hardware being delivered and assembled. Launching in Summer 2009 doesn't really feel that far away now. :)
The Orion work I'm involved with is interesting, mostly because its new for me. I'm not doing much guidance work with it because I don't have the time available to really sink my teeth into it. But a few weeks ago there were some URGENT! items that had to be addressed pretty quickly as the design settles down for this year's Preliminary Design Review. I've been working with some people to figure out some of the ops concept for the capsule entry and recovery, how often we would try to splashdown where, where should we go if we can't wait in orbit for some reason. It's working with maps and orbit dynamics and constraints such as ensuring the safe disposal of rocket debris, acceptable weather for the capsule to splashdown, where our recovery forces may be, and getting enough sunlight prior to spacecraft return so the batteries have enough juice to last through entry and the time spent bobbing in the water afterwards. The last few days we've been chasing after an issue where one system team's assumptions turned out to be too constraining for us to fly missions, so we had to work out a reasonable constraint that balances our ability to fly the spacecraft and also doesn't drive their system to an extreme.
It is fun designing a spacecraft. It is also a lot of fun figuring out how best to fly one whether it's at Mars or at Earth. That is why I'm pretty glad to be where I am in Mission Operations, getting to help out with both.
Besides work and playing Carina, I haven't done very much lately. We went out on Sunday for steak with Becca and friends in celebration of Becca's birthday; Carina tried to eat the crayons. Jen and I also watched Innerspace on cable. Jen had never seen it. That took me back to some memories when I was a kid. I totally forgot Meg Ryan was in it... must have been one of her first movies since she didn't headline it.
Carina is feeling better, after her 104+ deg fever over the weekend. She still has a runny nose, but, it's not very bad. Attention, oh unsuspecting world: she is now crawling! Last night she crawled 5 feet towards me in the kitchen while she was very unhappy and hungry. Tonight she was crawling around in the room upstairs, chasing the dogs and me. We've been trying to get the dogs ready for this over the last few weeks, and I think they're doing pretty well. Roxy let Carina climb a little on her without getting grumpy, and then Carina left her alone and went on to something else. Zoya's pretty gentle with her now too. We're also working with Carina to get her to softly pet the dogs, instead of fiercely grabbing their fur and skin.
No one likes the fierce grab. She's pretty strong!
My work is coming along. I'm splitting my time between the Mars Science Laboratory mission I've been working on since I graduated and the Orion capsule that we'll fly after we retire the Shuttle. For the Mars mission we've been spending time figuring out what crazy scenarios can break the entry guidance while it tries to get us within 10 km of the target, and how we can counter that without hamstringing the guidance. The desire is to have a robust guidance that still delivers the spacecraft to the target on both good days and bad days. Some of this is done in the flight software. Some of this is done in how we operate the spacecraft. Many of these ideas we've been carrying of for a few years but haven't had time to really start looking at them until now. Meanwhile, the project pushes forward with successful parachute tests in wind tunnels, with flight software being tested in thousands of simulations, and with flight hardware being delivered and assembled. Launching in Summer 2009 doesn't really feel that far away now. :)
The Orion work I'm involved with is interesting, mostly because its new for me. I'm not doing much guidance work with it because I don't have the time available to really sink my teeth into it. But a few weeks ago there were some URGENT! items that had to be addressed pretty quickly as the design settles down for this year's Preliminary Design Review. I've been working with some people to figure out some of the ops concept for the capsule entry and recovery, how often we would try to splashdown where, where should we go if we can't wait in orbit for some reason. It's working with maps and orbit dynamics and constraints such as ensuring the safe disposal of rocket debris, acceptable weather for the capsule to splashdown, where our recovery forces may be, and getting enough sunlight prior to spacecraft return so the batteries have enough juice to last through entry and the time spent bobbing in the water afterwards. The last few days we've been chasing after an issue where one system team's assumptions turned out to be too constraining for us to fly missions, so we had to work out a reasonable constraint that balances our ability to fly the spacecraft and also doesn't drive their system to an extreme.
It is fun designing a spacecraft. It is also a lot of fun figuring out how best to fly one whether it's at Mars or at Earth. That is why I'm pretty glad to be where I am in Mission Operations, getting to help out with both.
Besides work and playing Carina, I haven't done very much lately. We went out on Sunday for steak with Becca and friends in celebration of Becca's birthday; Carina tried to eat the crayons. Jen and I also watched Innerspace on cable. Jen had never seen it. That took me back to some memories when I was a kid. I totally forgot Meg Ryan was in it... must have been one of her first movies since she didn't headline it.
Labels: baby, rocket science
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