NEEMO 15
University of Houston SICSA graduate student, Abraham Chavez got first hand experience on how crew performance and productivity may be affected in a Near Earth Asteriod (NEA) while participating in NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations 15 (NEEMO 15) off the shore of Key Largo, Florida. The NASA Extreme Environment Missions Operations Project sends groups of NASA employees and contractors to live in the Aquarius undersea reasearch station for up to three weeks at a time. This year’s NEEMO 15 crew consisted of commander Shannon Walker-NASA Astronaut; Takuya Onishi-JAXA Astronaut Candidate ; David Saint Jacques-CSA Astronaut and Steve Squyres-Golwin Smith Professor of Astronomy, Cornell University. Crew performance and productivity data during near earth asteriod extra-vehicular tasks (including intra-vehicular tasks inside the habitat) and behavioral human performance emergency scenerios inside the habitat with different communication delays were gather by the graduate student that will help with designing future advanced mission planning tools required for near earth asteriods (NEA) architure. Next generation planning tools could assist deep exploration crews with an autonomous planning system that could assist them with accomplishing nominal tasks dealing with spacecraft structural, thermal and power data tracking to mentioned a few as well as providing the crew with an advanced viewer timeline for the crew to see and execute from while in course to a near earth object or other destinations. Additionally, this autonomous system could potentially design a two-three day mission to an asteroid or a 200 day mission to Mars while allowing the crew to focus more on payload experiments while maximizing crew time. This advanced planning tools will also be required to display power, thermal and strutural constraints and data that could be display by the same tool.
By Abraham Chavez, MS-SpaceArch Student
62 International Astronautical Congress - Cape Town 2011
Cape Town, South Africa—
Every year, the International Astronautical Federation, together with the International Academy of Astronautics and the International Institute of Space Law (IISL), holds the International Astronautical Congress (IAC). The IAC is an annual meeting of professionals in space disciplines who participate in plenary sessions, lectures and meetings. There is also a large exhibition.
Attendies include agency heads and senior executives of government space agencies and corporations, academic researchers, students and young professionals.
SICSA faculty member Olga Bannova and grad student Justin Trammell participated in the 62nd International Astronautical Congress technical program and presented papers that are now available in Publications & Reports. Professor Bannova serves as a Vice-Chair of the IAA Commission VI that coordinated IAC's 23rd Symposium on Space Activity and Society.
UH Space Architecture Graduate Student Selected to Participate in Russian Space Technology Internship Program
Moscow, Russia—
Sixty students representing 13 countries worldwide were competitively selected to participate in the Space Development Theory and Practice 2011 Internship held at Bauman Moscow State Technical University. The focus of the two week program was to participate in an international collaboration of engineering and science students to design, manufacture and operate space science projects. The program visited some of the major space research facilities including the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre and Mission Control Centre. The participants were tasked to design a robotic rover for a surface mission on Mercury. US participants were sponsored by the Rice University Baker Institute.
(Pictured above) UH Space Architecture Program graduate student, David Ladewig, speaks to Russian cosmonauts Andrei Borisenko, Alexandre Samokutâev, and Sergei Volkov aboard the International Space Station from the Mission Control Centre in Moscow, Russia. The question asked was how the retirement of the space shuttle will impact the operations of the International space Station moving forward.
“My favorite part of the trip was how the program was scheduled. We had plenty of time to see the major sites of Moscow while simultaneously having interesting lectures and meeting with important people from Russia’s top space companies. Having our translator and other Russian students close by at all times made each moment a more personable experience for me. I was able to experience Russia as if I were a citizen not just a tourist. I now have a group of international friends that I will definitely stay in contact with throughout my career.” David Ladewig
By David Ladewig, MS-SpaceArch Student
New MS-Space Architecture Program
SICSA’s high visibility, excellent reputation and unique educational programs offered through the College attract many out-of-state and international students to the UH. A new MS-Space Architecture program that was approved by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board in 2003 extends graduate study opportunities to people with non-architecture as well as architecture undergraduate degrees. This program was originally tailored for Houston area aerospace professionals from NASA and affiliated companies, but is also attracting others from outside the state and US. Since its recent implementation, the program has produced more than a dozen graduates, and about the same number is currently enrolled.
