Space Walks & Garbage: NASA Co-Op #3 Week One
Space Walks & Garbage: NASA Co-Op #3 Week One
Space Garbage
Familiarized myself with the Inventory and Stowage Officer (ISO) team this week. They are a console position Mission Control that is in charge of managing the inventory and stowage of all US items on board the International Space Station (ISS). ISO prepares products for upcoming real-time operations and coordinates with other consoles regarding stowage plans. ISO is responsible for directing the crew to consolidate, relocate, audit, and unload a visiting vehicle. ISO as well as the Mission Control consoles’ mantra is to distill all information and procedures to make astronaut’s life easier. This is critical because astronauts have to navigate a lot of factors folks on ground don’t have to like; CO2 clustering around their face due to lack of gravity causing drowsiness, homesickness, isolation and general aggregations of communication challenges.
This week we focused on double checking the list of garbage that will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere in Japanese JAXA’s HTV6 cargo ship. Tediously we reviewed each item so nothing got thrown away that shouldn’t and items that would stink up the station were not missed.
Spacewalk
Conducted on the job training in Mission Control's support room called MPSR (Multi-Purpose Support Room, pronounced "mipser") during the Friday the Thirteenth spacewalk. With an official Mission Control headset I followed along the astronauts tasks. Astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet spacewalked outside of ISS to update power systems. Upgrading power system of ISS was the overall goal of this month’s suite of Extra Vehicular Activities. Three 428lb Lithium-Ion batteries replaced nickel hydrogen batteries to store power for ISS during this spacewalk. Before the conclusion of the spacewalk engineers in mission control confirmed the batteries’ integration and initial power storage operations.
MPSRs usually use multi-view video with six images of ISS’ exterior and the crew to observe tasks being completed. They listen in on live loops to the Flight Director’s final calls, CAPCOM’s instructions and astronaut’s questions. If necessary MPSR operators can relay to their counterparts in front room Mission Control (FCR-1) information that can be filtered and relayed to Flight.
During the spacewalk there are many glove checks to check for leaks and anomalies. These gloves are impressively engineered to be thick enough to pressurize protect you from space yet gentle enough to allow you to feel space station through them. Astronauts could confirm with Mission Control that batteries were correctly mounted into place by describing drill rotations, torque and light sensor reading on the hand tool.
WAYS TO GET INVOLVED
Intern at NASA, year round, summer, spring or fall semesters.
Co-Op at NASA (Pathways Internship) and get sworn in as a Civil Servant.
Full-time employment at NASA opportunities!
This week's NASA achievements.
Everything about Mission Control from a Flight Director
More Posts from Ourtech and Others
Ideas for Teachers: Programming Lesson Plan
When I return back to my hometown I will be visiting schools to share about my NASA experience and teach programming. I will be sharing my lesson plans here for a day of programming and a day of space related learning. Let’s start with programming. One of my first stops will be my Mom’s Kindergarten class so you will notice my lesson plan is catered for elementary students.
Morning: What is programming?
After your usual morning activities; “G-O-O-D M-O-R-N-I-N-G Good Morning Aye Aye Good Morning *clap* *clap”, drawing sticks and telling about your weekend, introduce students to the concept of programming. Ask students, “What do you think programming is?” Write down the answers on the white board. After answer along the lines of “Programming is telling a computer to do things - make a video game, control a robot, create an App, and more!” Next I would show them a short video with our current stars in technology.
Lets Start Coding
“Enough talk about programming let’s do it!” A great introduction to coding is a Made With Code project. The Yeti project is my favorite of these activities. Students take turns dragging and dropping blocks of code assigning attributes to the Yeti fur color and feet size. After assigning attributes the students can watch the Yeti dance. When I have had students write yeti code they enjoy changing the colors and dance many times!
Afternoon: Code Related Rotations
Skills needed to program are not only found in front of a screen but working in a team, time for activity rotations. (These will be the centers I will have but you all can have different ones.) At one center I will have my LEGO robot for the students to program. There will be objects that the robot can pick up or avoid. At the second center 3D printed puzzles will be available for students to solve. At the third center an activity with half a blank page and half a lined page. Students can draw a picture of what they think would be cool to program and write about it. Last center create a robot out of construction paper, foil, or other mediums.
Now You Try
Take a trip to the computer lab and let students try to program on their own. Hour of Code is a great resource where students can learn programming at various levels. Two activities I tested out an enjoyed was a Flappy Bird Game Creator and Star Wars Drone Game. Students can code on their own or work in a group to help each other figure things out.
Have fun teaching students about programming! In the future I hope to get a Sphero, 3D printer, and Arduino type kit. Maybe you all have other ideas for a programming lesson plan.
NASA Co-Op Week 12: Makers & 3D Printers
Well-being of a generation can be measured by the number of children who attend a Maker Faire. Houston's George R Brown Convention Center was filled with programmers, 3D printers,hand made creations, geeky gear and folks passionate about their ability to create. Houston Maker Faire featured 150 booths, soap makers, FIRST/ VEX robotics teams, LEGO builders and cosplay costume makers. Us NASA interns and Co-Ops set up a booth sharing about career opportunities, letting students share ideas with NASA and coloring pages with kids. Folks tried on an Apollo 11 helmet and space walk glove.
WAYS TO GET INVOLVED
Apply for a NASA internship open now, login to apply. Sooner the better. There are also fellowships and scholarships available: https://intern.nasa.gov/ossi/web/students/login/
Mentor a FIRST Robotics team. Teams with students age K-12:
http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/coachesmentors
Apply to be a NASA Community College Aerospace Scholar open now: https://nas.okstate.edu/ncas/
Activity sheets for students: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/about/resources/jscfacts/activity_coloring_sheets.html
Co-Op for NASA. What does this mean? Flip-flop between working at NASA and studying in college. This is how NASA hires a majority of their Civil Servants. Job openings are updated every week or so: http://nasajobs.nasa.gov/studentopps/employment/opportunities.htm
Accomplishments this week at NASA: https://youtu.be/4iaScOqvI64
Full-time positions at NASA. Use this website and simply search "NASA": https://www.usajobs.gov/
Us interns in front of NASA’s Saturn V rocket. Yes that astro-nerd on the far left is Caleb who is a fellow intern and Tumblr star: http://astronomicalwonders.tumblr.com/ who blogs about stars.
Early lunar lander prototype at Johnson Space Center #JSC #NASAIntern
While adorned in Christmas decorations Mission Control is working fast to instruct astronauts on an unexpected space walk. Year in space astronaut Scott Kelly and newly arrived Tim Kopra are performing an Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) while first time astronaut Tim Peake is declared the commander of Space Station. Kelly and Kopra are assisting in moving the Mobile Transporter rail car a few inches to a worksite on the station’s truss where it can be latched in place. The rail car was stuck and needed to be moved so a Russian ships could be captured this week. In addition they are checking off items from previous EVA Honey Do list. From the perspective of someone who has developed astronaut training, this last minute EVA is extremely impressive! It takes months to develop an EVA's schedule, hours of training in the largest pool in the world with station mock ups - Neutral Buoyancy Lab, and development of hours of training videos. It takes a whole day just to get the suit on! My mentor said who ever pulled this space walk planning off is going to get a big award. WATCH LIVE NOW: www.ustream.tv/NASAHDTV
Astronaut Scott Kelly returns to Earth after a year on the International Space Station Thursday March 1st 10:27pmCT. You can watch here: www.ustream.tv/NASAHDTV Prior to Kelly’s return I will post about what I personally think his top moments from his year in space is, including whatever this green blob thing is.
SPACEX STUCK THE LANDING
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket landed on a barge opening doors to reusable rockets on future missions. This is a BIG DEAL as reusable rockets save major moolah. Congrats to all those who worked on it! http://gizmodo.com/spacexs-falcon-9-rocket-just-made-the-first-ocean-barge-1769942283
Circuit board I made at a NASA internship at Glenn Research Center summer of 2013 for a Solar Array Regulator.
100 Million X-Rays: NASA Co-Op #2 Week Three & Four
Jupiter orbital insertion, FIRST robotics coach visit and humidity sensor test prep have filled these past two weeks.
Drafting a fluid schematic complete with themocouples and pressure gauges I learn some fluid dynamics not expected to acquire as an electrical engineering and computer science major. The humidity sensor will be tested three ways - for 0% humidity with evaporating liquid nitrogen (Yah!), for ~ 50% with ambient room humidity down here in Houston, and >50% with ambient air being pulled through a water filled bubbler. Sensors will systemically be scattered to collect data and determine with a hefty amount of PV=NRTing if the humidity sensor works. After learning PV=NRT can only be used when you are certain the amount of water and vapor are equal to derive humidity we came up with the simple three part test matrix explained above.
My high school FIRST Robotics coach came to Johnson Space to tour some spacefaring robots, propulsion test center and space station mock ups (exact replicas of what is in space) at the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility! We also visited Houston’s Natural Science Museum and biked on Galveston.
Within a second of what was expected the Juno Spacecraft performed her tasks successfully and inserted into Jupiter’s orbit. This basketball court sized spacecraft will be exposed radiation equivalent to a human receiving 100 million X-Rays in a year. Juno also captured the first demonstration of celestial harmonic movement hypothesized by physics. Powered by solar energy this Juno is unique because most crafts that travel this far are radioisotope thermoelectrically powered. A critical part of this insertion was turning the solar arrays back toward the Sun post insertion.
WAYS TO GET INVOLVED
Watch…
Juno Media Briefing: https://youtu.be/I6uUEYOzipw
Juno Insertion: https://youtu.be/zfIqnpqPFbI
Juno Post Insertion Media Briefing: https://youtu.be/LH_uPWU5V3o
Apply for a NASA Internship: https://intern.nasa.gov/ossi/web/public/guest/searchOpps/
Apply for a NASA Co-Op (check back as it is updated as soon as one opens): http://nasajobs.nasa.gov/studentopps/employment/opportunities.htm
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