August 28, 2008

During the Spring of 2008, six UT ASE undergraduate students had the opportunity to participate in a pilot program sponsored by NASA Johnson Space Center and directed by Dr. Belinda Marchand. The program, initially conceived by Dr. Marchand and Andre Sylvester, the Chief of the Graphics and Simulation branch at JSC until April of 2008, seeks to offer undergraduate students an in-depth exposure to various aspects of modeling and simulation. Through this apprenticeship, NASA and UT seek to offer students a cohesive long term exposure to the tools and techniques of modeling, simulation, and integration to better prepare them for technical positions in the field.

This year, six students from the ASE463Q class were selected to participate in this program: Angela Reeves (team lead), Daniel Korf, Thomas Brain, Mays Overton, Greg Gremillion, and Ashka Patel. The team also included graduate research assistant Divya Thakur, a student of Dr. Marchand’s, and Jaime Cervantes, the undergraduate research assistant for the ASE Visualization Laboratory. The team was tasked with building a virtual spacecraft rendezvous and docking simulator. In the span of one semester, the team developed the necessary dynamical and control models, numerically implemented their simulations using NASA JSC’s Trick real-time simulation environment, and built a TCL based software interface to allow Trick to stream real-time data directly into the visualization software employed in the Vislab, Amira. This interface is the driver behind the animation of the 6 degree-of-freedom rendezvous and docking simulator.

Over the course of one semester, the students had their first exposure to various software development tools and environments, including the UNIX operating system, UNIX development tools and editors, C programming, Trick (real-time simulation environment), TCL scripting (Trick-Amira interface), Enigma (NASA JSC Software for Solid Modeling), and Amira (virtual simulation visualization). One of the advantages of the Trick simulation environment is that it simplifies the integration of independent developments. This allowed the team to split up into small groups, pursue independent developments focused on smaller aspects of the problem, and easily integrate these developments into a single cohesive simulator.

At the completion of their project, the students held a very successful presentation for the acting chief of the NASA JSC Graphics and Simulation Branch, Mike Red, the previous chief, Andre Sylvester, various members of the NASA JSC technical staff, and several contractors, including representatives from L3 Communications Bob Zehentner and David Hasan. Bob Zehentner, the L3 Senior Program Manager for Houston Operations, commented “I was quite impressed with the effort of these UT aero students, the software tools they’d mastered, the quality of their analysis and investigation…..all in a matter of a few months.” David Hasan, from L3 Communications, acted as the technical liason for the project since its inception. He states “They demonstrated a mastery of the fundamentals and the practical challenges inherent in multi-team engineering projects.” Following their presentation, the students also had an opportunity to participate in a VIP tour of the various virtual simulators at NASA JSC and other life sized mockups. The tour was personally conducted by Mike Red, the acting chief of the Graphics and Simulation Branch.

Currently, applicants are actively being sought and recruited for next year’s project, which will be extended to a full-year and includes opportunities for paid undergraduate appointments and summer internships for qualified students who successfully complete the program. Students interested in participating in the project should email their resume’s to Dr. Marchand.