Dec 17, 2008 - Claremont, Calif. - "Finally, I would like to thank The Aerospace Corporation's CUAP program for funding both the Clinic project and my conference registration fee; and Prof. Pat Little, director of the Engineering Clinic Program, and Harvey Mudd College for providing the funding for me to go to this conference. Not every college would send an alum, albeit a recent alum, to an academic conference; and I really think it speaks to Harvey Mudd's dedication to undergraduate research that they sent me."
Danowitz's presentation was based on the paper "Optical Distress Beacon for Space Use," which will be published in the conference proceedings. Co-authors and collaborators on the project include Nathaniel Pinckney '08; Michael Braly '09; Howard Chen '08; Andrew Giles '08; Samuel Osofsky '85, liaison for The Aerospace Corporation; and Sarah Harris, professor of engineering at HMC and faculty adviser. Danowitz, who is currently working toward his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Stanford University, was the only member of the team to attend the conference.
During the year-long project, the team designed a personal, optical distress beacon for use by astronauts during extra-vehicular activities (EVAs, or space walks). The project was prompted in part by the increasing numbers of manned activities outside spacecraft. In 2007, International Space Station crew members completed 23 space walks, a 64 percent increase over the previous year, and 229 percent more than in 2005. It is likely that space tourism will also increase the number of EVAs.
The team developed two prototypes designed to supplement the current systems that rely on mission control to monitor medical sensors and voice communication. The first prototype, the Picosat Beacon, uses 18 LED emitters and is designed to be incorporated with The Aerospace Corporation's current picosatellite architecture. The second prototype, the Distributed Wireless Beacon, uses a scalable distress beacon system that includes a single controller unit and several visible emitter units.
The systems are designed to be engaged when the existing monitoring equipment fails (e.g., a broken tether) or if an astronaut becomes incapacitated due to a medical emergency. The distress beacons are designed primarily to provide astronauts in a spacecraft with a visual indicator of the location of an astronaut, or astronauts, outside the space vehicle. The beacons can also indicate the existence and type of an emergency situation involving astronauts outside the spacecraft.
"The team was highly motivated and excited to be designing hardware that could eventually be used in space," said Osofsky, who has served as liaison from The Aerospace Corporation on previous Clinic projects at HMC. "They developed the design for both beacon types using a rigorous systems engineering approach.
"The team pushed themselves to finish the demonstration hardware for Projects Day, submit a paper to the 3rd IAASS Conference, and prepare a patent disclosure (submitted in October, 2008), meeting all their deadlines. The presentation at the conference also was very successful, and generated a lot of interest in the team's concept and design,” Osofsky said. “Someday the team may hear that their efforts saved a life in space; that's just about the best outcome a Clinic can have."
Harris was equally laudatory in describing the team: "It was great to work with such a dynamic team. They brought their strengths to the table and built a creative and successful final product. Their initiative, dedication, and innovation really showed through when they finished all of their primary goals by the first semester of the two-semester project."
The conference attracted a diverse group of international scientists. According to Danowitz, "they were mainly from major space and aerospace corporations, national space agencies, and various space and aerospace regulatory agencies. There were also a number of fairly high-profile speakers, including director of safety and mission assurance from JAXA [Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency], the deputy director of safety and mission assurance from NASA, the ESA's [the European Space Agency] head of product assurance and safety, and the director of project management from the Canadian Space Agency, just to name a few."
"I'm really proud of the work put in by all of my fellow Clinic students on this project and feel that everyone involved did a superb job," Danowitz said. "I would especially like to thank Prof. Sarah Harris and our liaison, Sam Osofsky of The Aerospace Corporation, for all the help they gave us during the project and for their work in ensuring that I was able to attend this conference.
Additional resources:
-- A full schedule of the conference and the presentations
-- A story about the project in New Scientist magazine
Copyright 2012 Harvey Mudd College