Recent Projects
NASA Mission Operations Digital Twin
The MODT project interfaces Space Teams PRO with real-time NASA telemtry and the Omniverse platform to provide an advanced situational awareness and problem solving tool for mission control. Future missions, beginning with Artemis, will require integrated awareness of all space assets and ongoing human and robotic activities, not only on the lunar surface, but in lunar orbit, Earth orbit, transit, and landing. MODT enables operators to monitor the systems and operations of interest, and respond to off-nominal situations with access to all mission control data and products through a single portal. Team decision making can then proceed through predictive simulations to determine the best course of action accounting for operational options and parameters.
Mission Systems and Operations Co-Design for Human/Robot Teams
Developed a Lunar south-pole mission scenario for regolith sampling, excavation, and processing. Collaborative autonomous vehicles (excavators and transports) performed mining operations within permanently shadowed regions (PSR's), while periodically using recharge stations and delivering materials to water processing facilities. Simultaneously, crew and other robots performed exploration and sampling sorties to identify and determine next best sites for future mining. Design parameters of all assets, including crew space suits, rovers and robots were combined with operational constraints and rules to perform monte carlo simulations to optimize overall mission performance.
Satellite Rendezvous & Servicing
SimDynamX customers utilize Space Teams PRO to design and evaluate guidance, navigation and control strategies for proximity operations of satellites as well as rendezvous and docking strategies for capture and servicing. High order gravity models, propagation and atmospheric effects, attitude dynamics, sensor/actuator models, and precise lighting conditions are provided by Space Teams. Sensor data is accessed via the Python interface and user algorithms compute thruster commands to execute the approach and capture.
Lunar Lander Moving-Base Simulator
The Eight360 NOVA flight simulator is driven by Space Teams PRO to augment the sim's capabilities with manually controller lunar landing and lunar surface vehicles. This is a collaboration with the University of Sydney, Department of Mechanical , Mechatronic and Aerospace Engineering. The goal is to demonstrate worldwide, collaborative, virtual space mission simulation in real-time for mission design and for training. Human controlled landers, rovers, and other robots can be integrated and working together in the same simulation with other mixed-reality or purely virtual assets.
Space Teams Labs
NASA Space Grant supports a large scale STEM program called Space Teams Labs with the goal of reaching 100 schools and 10,000 students in underserved communities. This program and study is an extension of Space Teams Academy, in which schools receive computers and VR headsets, while their teachers receive a NASA stipend, while they execute a teacher-customized version of the Space Teams STEM program in their class or school. Students take lessons, watch tutorials and work with their teammates virtually to design and carry out a mission to another planet. Their design is continually analyzed and AI provides feedback to guide them toward a design that actually has to work according to the physics of the overall mission. From vehicle design to orbital mechanics, landing safely, building their habitat, and accessing local resources to survive, the students have to iterate on their design to compete with other teams for the best scoring mission. Their efforts are also part of a STEM study on the efficacy of the program for STEM engagement.
Spacecraft Operational Design & Analysis (SODA) Software
Developed software package which rapidly evaluates performance envelopes for spacecraft on-orbit proximity operations, docking and undocking, and thruster plume impingement effects for use by NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. The software evaluates thruster plume impingement induced disturbances, and induced free-drift rates, used to define, size, and assess control authority of vehicle thrusters, predict post-docking states, and perform Monte Carlo analysis for parameter impacts on performance.
Industrial 3D Intelligent Digital Twin AI/ML Algorithms & Software Development
Developed AI/ML algorithms and software to achieve 10X cost/schedule reduction in the development of 3D Intelligent Digital Twins for industrial facilities by automating manual processing. Developed software that automatically parses engineering schematics and extracts component information, symbols, text, lines, flow directions and their network connectivity graph, and generates knowledge graph. Developed software to detect, classify and geolocate components in a facility point cloud and automatically match them with component identification generated from schematic parsing.
SAFEGUARD - Explosives Siting for Rocket Engine Testing
Developed software package which determines safe stand-off distance to assure safety of personnel performing rocket engine testing at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL. The software provides risk vs distance tradeoff, event and exposure probabilities, and test site plan generator which shows risk based on personnel location on Google Maps. The software performed probabilistic quantitative risk assessment for blast overpressure, fragment impact, thermal effects, and toxic hazards due to failures in pressure vessels, liquid and solid rocket engines.
