Advanced Wireless Communication for Ground and Flight Operations

Another project I have in the works is an idea conceived by Dr. Jonathan Gluckman and Mr. Steve Harris of Integrated Dynamics, Inc. It's the Advanced Wireless Communicator. This technology is being designed for Mission Control and space operations to allow the flight controllers and astronauts a little more movement. With the Advanced Wireless Communicator, the flight controllers can get up and move around, away from their consoles, but still maintain situational awareness, allowing them to still know what is going on with the flights -- up to a mile and a half away. We are also looking into using this technology on the Space Shuttle and possibly the Space Station, so the astronauts can also be wireless.

The existing wireless system weighs between five to seven pounds. This new system would weigh less than one pound. This would reduce the cost of getting the Space Shuttle up in space. One of the biggest challenges NASA faces is eliminating weight from payloads, because the heavier the Space Shuttle, the more propulsion (fuel system) it takes to get it up into space. The more propulsion it takes, the more expensive it becomes. Like everyone else, NASA is also looking at ways to cut operations costs. I was able to get some funding for this project (seed money), so it is a work in progress.

The last project I worked on was Voice Recognition and Synthetic Speech for Mission Control. This technology was designed to eliminate keystrokes or mouse clicks on the computer for the most nominal (ordinary or standard) operations -- allowing them to be performed as voice commands for the computer and the flight controller. Essentially, the computer becomes a "smart computer." The purpose of this software is to monitor basic operations by speaking to the flight controllers so the flight controllers can monitor or work on other things or problems that may arise.

Another project I recently worked on is the Remote Multi Purpose Support Room (MPSR -- pronounced mipser). As a communication expert, my responsibility for this project was the voice part of the hardware, whereas someone else worked on the data part. The data is on the computer screen and the voice part comes over a cell phone. This technology is to allow the flight controllers to be off-site, or at least out of Mission Control, but again still be connected to what's going on during the flight. Besides figuring out how to make this work, it also had to be integrated with the data portion.

To figure out how to make this work, I interfaced with system and communications engineers at Houston Cellular (industry) to come up with designs. We took a look at the hardware they had, and we started working with the StarTac, a palm-sized cell phone. This hardware will be used to connect the flight controllers back to MCC (Mission Control Center) without actually being there.

Besides understanding the hardware, we had to figure out how the networks or transponders worked that would be used to carry these cell phone signals back to MCC. Then all of this had to be integrated with the DVIS (Digital Voice Intercom System) software in MCC. After I figured out how to integrate these systems, I wrote up the procedure to be included in the Flight Control Operations Handbook, so this procedure is now part of mission operations. We haven't actually used this technology yet, but it will lay the groundwork for remote and distributed operations -- which is future technology. This is what challenged and motivated me to generate ideas with Integrated Dynamics, Inc. personnel to develop the Advanced Wireless Communicator.

These new technologies will take NASA into the 21st century. The way we communicate and do things is constantly changing. We must be creative and innovative to keep up with the changing technologies while conceiving, developing, and implementing new ideas. Innovate or Die!