AIAA SF, P.O. Box 1548, Mountain View, CA 94042-1548
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AIAA SF, P.O. Box 1548, Mountain View, CA 94042-1548 |
AIAA SF is continuing its collaboration with the Silicon Valley Space Center in presenting talks aimed at small payload entrepreneurs.
We will be hosting technical talks on other aerospace-topics as well.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Hacker Dojo, Mountain View
Students at Valley Christian High School (VCHS), San Jose, created the first high school experiment to fly on the International Space Station in early 2011. The VCHS NanoLab contained a plant incubator for six plants, a water storage and distribution system, LEDs to simulate the sun, a digital camera to take photos of the plants, and a microcontroller to provide for the simulation of sun rise, sun set and rain. Environmental sensors monitor the NanoLab temperature and humidity. The students' NanoLab returned to earth on a Russian Soyuz Return Vehicle on March 16, 2011. The ISS Project showed that for today’s students, "The Sky is No Longer the Limit".
Encouraged by the experiences of that first experiment, the program expanded to other high schools in the current academic year. A set of seven experiments were created by 83 students from four high schools; they are packaged as two NanoLabs. The NanoLabs were launched on an Ariane 5 ATV-3 Automated Transfer Vehicle from French Guiana on March 22, 2012. They are now operational on the ISS, and are scheduled to return to Earth on a Russian Soyuz return vehicle on July 1, 2012.
2012
Hacker Dojo, Mountain View
The Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) market is in a rapid growth phase with the greatest demand for smaller UAV systems that give military users a low cost, persistent surveillance capability. Dr. Stephen Morris is president of MLB, which has produced small UAV systems for more than 10 years for commercial and military users. He will discuss mission performance and operational issues peculiar to small (less than 100 lb) unmanned aircraft and how this affects the overall system design. Their latest R&D effort focuses on a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL)configuration which eliminates the need for cumbersome launch and recovery infrastructure.
More information on specific talks and sign-up (well... "let us know" you're coming) will be posted as the events get closer.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Hacker Dojo, Mountain View
GomSpace is an entrepreneurial company that grew out of research work at the University of Aalborg in Denmark. The founders were the driving force behind the the first European CubeSat, AAU-Cubesat, launched in June 2003. Since then, the company has grown a product line of CubeSat and nano-satellite components and continues to drive the CubeSat Space Protocol. The company is preparing to launch GOMX-1 in September. It will include an experimental payload to test and demonstrate a software defined radio (SDR) to receive ADS-B signals. They are also improving attitude determination and control system (ADCS) algorithms and will test them in flight.
The founders developed the CubeSat Space Protocol (CSP), a small network-layer delivery protocol designed for CubeSats. It enables One-Step Integration (OSI), which allows teams to skip effortlessly across the interface definition and iteration phases and go directly to integration. An open source implementation of CSP licensed under LGPLv2.1 can be found on GitHub.
GomSpace now builds an array of hardware components for use by other nano-satellite teams.
Monday, April 2, 2012; 6:30pm-8:00pm
Hacker Dojo, Mountain View
With affordable and reliable access space becoming more and more important, NASA is looking into smaller spacecraft and new ways of getting them to space. TechEdSat is a 1U CubeSat (10x10x10 cm, 1kg) being launched to the International Space Station this summer, where it will be among the first CubeSats deployed from the ISS.
TechEdSat will be the first NASA satellite to utilize the Space Plug-and-Play Architecture, or SPA. This technology shortens the development cycle by standardizing subsystem interactions on spacecraft. Utilizing this technology, TechEdSat will move from the back of a napkin to hardware delivery in under 6 months.
Monday, March 5, 2012; 6:30pm-8:00pm
Hacker Dojo, Mountain View
Additive manufacturing is the process of building (or "3D printing") a product layer by layer. A wide range of materials can be printed with additive manufacturing machines, from hard plastics to aluminum and titanium. Example spacecraft components that can be built include more efficient rocket nozzles and lighter miniaturized satellite parts.
Jason Dunn is CTO and co-founder of Made in Space, Inc., a space manufacturing company that leverages the rapid advancements in 3D printing and additive manufacturing to offer unique solutions for the aerospace industry.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012; 6:30pm-8:00pm
NASA Research Park, Moffett Field
The wealth from mines, from the dawn of recorded human history, is the epic march of mankind along the path of progress. It was the mines that made ancient civilizations great; and in more recent times have created immense wealth for the people of Europe, North America, Australia and now China, India, Brazil and Russia. John Chapman, a veteran of mining industry, will discuss the application of proven methods on earth for successful mineral exploration, mineral deposit development and mine/process operations on the moon and Mars.
Thursday, December 1, 2011; 6:30pm-8:00pm;
Hacker Dojo, Mountain View
Designed originally for smartphones and tablets, mobile application processors have expanded their impact to robotics and small avionics. Like their larger cousins, many of these provide hardware support for 4-element floating point vectors, thereby making them attractive for guidance, navigation, and control. Their small size and low cost have made them ideal for university research and even hobbyist projects. At San Jose State Univ., a couple of student design projects are utilizing the BeagleBoard and TI OMAP3 processors for rover and satellite applications.
Thursday, November 3, 2011; 6:30pm-8:00pm;
Hacker Dojo, Mountain View
Team Phoenicia is a group of technically bent individuals that are entering into the Google Lunar X Prize. The team's lander/rover combination will piggyback on a communications satellite launch to geosynchronous orbit as a “hosted payload.” From there, the lander will separate from the parent craft and make a burn to insert itself into a transit orbit to a direct landing on the lunar South Pole. The descent will be rocket braked, but will deploy airbags in a manner for final landing. Once the lander has righted, the vehicle will deploy a multi wheeled rover and a large fan shaped placard.
Thursday, October 20, 2011; 6:30pm-8:00pm;
Hacker Dojo, Mountain View
Seattle-based Laser Motive is developing laser power beaming systems to transmit electricity without wires, for applications where wires are either cost prohibitive or physically impractical. In November 2009, the company won the Space Elevator Power-Beaming Challenge Games at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. Recent advances in commercial laser technology bring many applications within the reach of economic and technical viability, from powering unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to launching rockets via laser power to beaming solar energy from space to the Earth.
Monday, October 3, 2011; 6:30pm-8:00pm;
Hacker Dojo, Mountain View
To demonstrate the feasibility of using commercial smartphone technology in small satellites, a team at NASA Ames has built a CubeSat with an Google Nexus One phone in it. The smartphone runs Google's Android operating system. Known as PhoneSat, the project is built as an open source platform, to allow for adoption in future small satellite project.
Thursday, February 17, 2010; 6-8pm;
Hacker Dojo, Mountain View
Dr. Arif Karabeyoglu is the President and Chief Technical Officer of Space Propulsion Group, Inc., and a Consulting Professor at Stanford University. He has performed extensive research on hybrid rocket combustion and propulsion, ranging from theoretical studies to investigations of practical applications and propulsion testing. Dr. Karabeyoglu has taught courses at Stanford University in Applied Aerodynamics, Rocket Propulsion, and Experimental Aeronautics and Astronautics. He has served as Program Manager and Principal Investigator for a number of SPG programs that focused on the development and testing of hybrid rockets. Dr. Karabeyoglu has numerous journal articles, conference papers and patents in the field of rocket propulsion. He is the chairman of the AIAA's Hybrid Technical Committee and serves on the Expert Advisory Board that oversees the development of the SpaceShipTwo propulsion system.
Thursday, November 18, 2010; 6:30pm-8:00pm;
Hacker Dojo, Mountain View
Prof. Sigrid Close, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University. Also brief presentation before talk by AIAA SF Young Professionals Rocket Team.
Synopsis: Prof. Close shared some interesting insights on her work in the areas of space hazards, including space weather detection, modeling for improved spacecraft designs, and advanced signal processing and electromagnetic wave interactions with plasma for ground-to-satellite communication systems. [ More about Prof. Close's research. ]
The AIAA SF TechTalks series is devoted to exploring emerging technical concepts and innovations in the aerospace arena. There are two main tracks of focus:
If you have suggestions for new topics or sources of presenters, send a note to the AIAA SF Technical Activities Director: technical @ aiaa-sf.org.
Many program of the TechTalks series are jointly sponsored with the Silicon Valley Space Center and are held at the Hacker Dojo.