Aerospace & Defense

MSL: How Big Is It?

By Mike Deliman

I’ve been asked here and there “Just how big is this MSL thing?”

It’s a question I can give several answers to, depending on what the asker means.  In physical terms, you could ride on it.  Here is a good example…in this photo of a worker and MSL, you can see the cruise shell is large enough to house a small couch with more than one person sitting on it.  The rover itself is quite large, I’d imagine good comparisons would be something on the order of a ride-on tractor-mower. 

 

But that isn’t really the only answer.  In scientific terms, this is huge.  This rover is a well-equipped geological laboratory on wheels.  It carries equipment every high-school and university would be proud to have available.  Laser spectrometer, chemical analyzers, close-up and long-distance cameras, not to mention an advanced autonomous robot running it all.  Any of these tools would be excellent for investigating or teaching/learning about the earth.

Even more so, it represents a huge leap forward in technologies. “Earth sciences” (or Mars) can benefit from miniature spectrometers and imaging tools as are carried on this rover.  An automated flying crane could be applied to many tasks here on Earth, not just dropping scientific payloads where humans should never go (like in a volcano, for instance).  Automated robots could be used to perform maintenance and inspection inside the infrastructures of large cities where humans cannot go, and would be especially useful if they could identify items of interest (like cracks inside a pipeline).  MSL inherited code tested on Opportunity that is able to identify rocks of interest and photograph them, so that our scientists may have the ability to investigate them more closely.

What’s more it’s doing all of this on another planet, sending back results that will once again change what we teach in science classes.

You may ask “Right, but all of this doesn’t really help me now, does it?”  Wind River has benefited immensely from scientific use of our software.  As a for-instance, one of our most powerful tools evolved from investigations made by JPL while testing Mars Pathfinder.  Wind River's System Viewer tool is extremely useful for customers classifying the nominal operations of a system or looking into anomalies. It has grown-up alongside VxWorks, which is at the heart of Curiosity, and is capable of monitoring activities on multiple cores simultaneously.  This can be used to make all of the gizmos we rely on day-to-day much more reliable.

That is pretty huge!

 

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All Your Mars are Belong to US!

By Mike Deliman

It's time to celebrate. We have returned to Mars with the most complex roving robotic laboratory ever sent to another planet. We have demonstrated and proved the Sky Crane concept, which opens doors onto other worlds that we have never had before. We can successfully deliver 1 metric ton to the surface of Mars.

This is an achievement beyond words. A new day is dawning on Mars, a day marked with the ability to achieve incredible scientific goals. A team of over 7000 individuals made this happen. A true testament to humankind. None of these contributors could have done this without the support of their families and significant others.  And I am extremely proud to work for Wind River, a company whose technology helped make all of this possible.

I'm a California boy. It takes someone very special to have this kind of draw, to pull me to Indiana.  Here we are.  It’s late.  This is a historic evening.

All times in Central time (Valparaiso, Indiana):

10:30pm - we tuned in to the press transmissions on both NASA-TV and USTREAM on JPL channel 3. We spent the next several hours toggling between the audio feeds, glued to the monitor.

10:40 pm - DSN ready to relay signals. EDL team is getting setup. EDL "tone screens" were being finalized. Chatter in the flight control room was muted.

10:52 pm - Mars View from MSL is about 20 degrees - she's getting close.

10:54 pm - EDL - all workstation minor alarms are cleared

10:55 pm - Bent Pipe downlink is ready on UHF

11:00 go/no-go? disable uplink transmitter? 90 minutes to ED&L

11:06 go/no-go roll call. Go! Window @ 0410UT/11:10pm

11:11 MSL is now within the orbit of Deimos (Moon of Mars)
Uplink shut-off, Curiosity is on her own, on Auto pilot.

11:12 MRO Com - MRO sequencers are open for recording and all instruments have been safed.
MO has been commanded to maneuver to attitude to relay ED&L, rolling for bent-pipe.

11:14 MO is radio silent, we should have telem back by 0500UT

11:15 All telecom ready for EDL

11:18 readiness checks begin. We're heading for Gale, which is even lower than Valles Marineris. If water flowed on Mars, it most likely flowed here.

11:20 ETV and MAX are "GO"

11:21 Oddy - MO - flies in a low enough orbit that even a slight rise or small hill could easily block the bent pipe; MRO can still store-and-forward, but it would be a several hour delay vs. the bent pipe. Data would need to be recovered then processed before we'd have all the telemetry we'd want.

11:25 Pete Theisinger covers the technical advancements between MPF, MER, and MSL. There is a slide that shows the improvements in landing ellipses made on each landing / mission. We are getting better and better at this.

11:29 GDL is on station.
MO - should re-acquire telem in about 30 or 40 minutes, just in time for ED&L. She's still rolling into position. To do this we have to "safe" the antennae for the duration.

11:30 We're a little "north" of the most-perfect EDL, in other words, so far, ED&L sequences are right on target. Navigation terminal is having issues.

11:31 FTSB test bed switches to a local net

11:33 ED&L lead briefs public on activities going on

-> 10:06 Pasadena time, will start anchor processes, 10:11 pm communication will shift to "tones". Loss of telemetry - about 13.5 minutes. In a few minutes we will link to Mars Odyssey to start the "bent pipe". Parachute will deploy. We will likely lose telem at the point when the parachute opens.

11:39 Dropped 2-way coms, re-acquired one-way data from MSL. No longer getting packet data.

11:30 data 1-way recovered after Goldstone xmitter was switched off. T-44 minutes to ED&L.

11:42 EDL disabled alarms, time to prep for ED&L main program.

11:43 Alarms disabled

11:44 FSTB flight sysetems test-bed shutting down.

11:45 EDL start and anchor are starting - main transition table enabled.
Flight Transition for EDL competed.

11:47 heaters powered off.

11:49 packets for rtpd - on - FSTB better test, no peachese

11:50 standby for delta poll
Telem is being recorded, recording telem.

11:52 Deltas (poll) is being conducted.

11:53 Verify EDL sequence is in main mode, and all devices nominal.
Systems are nominal. Cruise stage heaters - off. MARDI heater off. Main valve is at 34C, OK but a couple degrees warmer than expected. Avionics - green. Backup computer is Green. FSW metrics are green after Anchor. Only realtime data products are being returned. Ranging via DSN is disabled.

11:55 Mars is visible at 38 degrees of view to the craft.
EDL team takes over from the Cruise team. Cruise team is now unemployed. Congratulations to the cruise team for delivering Curiosity to Mars, ready to land, in fantastic shape.

11:58 Cruise phase is officially over. EDL...
11:58 Peanuts open and passed around. History - Ranger 6 team had no peanuts, and the Ranger had problems. Ranger 7 team had peanuts and was successful. Ranger 7 helped pave the way for the Apollo landing teams.

12:01 Bent Pipe data flow is starting from Odyssey; gold, yellow and red are open.

12:02 22 minutes from Entry. Status is nominal. Ody should start relaying data soon.
(to recap, Odyssey had to "roll" to a position where she could receive data from MSL and relay it to Earth in real time. This requires that antennae be stowed, the roll performed, then antenna be re-deployed. Recently Ody lost a reaction wheel, so she is running on a spare - this required the team to "re-learn" how to pilot the craft, because there are only 4 reaction wheels in total - one for X, Y, Z, and the spare "slew" wheel. The spare wheel is locked - motionless - unless one of the others fails.)

12:04 - waiting for Ody "Bent Pipe" relay data.

12:06 EDL Ops - Odyssey status - unlocked on time; realtime telemetry "things look good", but waiting on the status of the slew and waiting for data relay.

12:07 Nav filter is dropping, EDL prep for anchor complete

12:08 Phase - EDL - MSL is moving about 1 mile per second.

12:10 EDL - tones indicate vehicle is ready and pyros are enabled

12:11 pyro bus is armed and enabled

12:12 Pyros: firing. Momentum has shifted indicating coolant is venting (expected)

12:13 Tones for EDL: GO!

12:14 GO for EDL support. Carrier and tones are good. Seeing heartbeat and strong tones signal. RCS thrusters ok. Waiting for cruise stage separation.

12:15 Heartbeat and tones have had a minor drop in intensity, expected; this means the cruise stage "doughnut" has been ejected and flown "past" MSL (a good thing)

12:16 RCS warm-up - MSL is spinning-down and turning for entry (MSL was rotating while flying through space, this maneuver makes her ready for controlled entry)

12:17 Spindown complete. Turn complete. Tone indicates mass devices have ejected. 5.4 KM/Sec; signals at expected levels.

12:18 EDL begins, everything is going well

12:19 Heartbeat is good. 6 minutes; entry interface is OK. Tones good. 5.5KM/S.
All good.

12:20 Rockets have rotated the craft for entry. Craft will bank right, left, right while flying in. Ody -not- piping in data yet.

12:21 MRO should be storing data for store-and-forward support

12:23 1 minute to entry. (Terror starts soon.)

12:24 Losing signal... dropped. Tones are back... looking good
(TERROR!)

12:25 About to start thrusting. Stand by for guided entry.

12:12+ guided entry started

12:26 steering to targeted entry, 1st micro-burst completed. Peak deceleration and heat is passed (11 to 12 Earth G's)

12:26+ Odyssey bent-pipe receiving but no data on pipe yet

12:27 Ody - data is good.
12:27+ heading to target...
12:27++ team reports all good, heat shield reporting good data

12:28 Mach 2.4 at 17 KM altitude, flying "like a plane" now
12:28+ standby for parachute
12:28++ mass is jettisoned

12:29 - chute deployed... thrusters enabled... Deceleration confirmed.
12:29++ ground lock on radar... we see the ground!

12:30 waiting for thrusters.. Earth has "set" from Mars point of view, direct data lost. Ody's bent-pipe is working fine.
12:30+ backshell standby.. powered flight on...
12:30++ Ody signals strong, 500M and falling... Sky Crane ready.
FOUND A FLAT PLACE TO LAND!

12:31 Sky Crane started...
12:32 Deltas are nominal, flight is stable.. TOUCHDOWN we are ON MARS.\
(The 7 minutes of terror are over.)

Waiting for images.

12:33 Sky Crane is at safe distance. Heartbeat and telemetry is good.
Images being transmitted
12:34 First image coming down via bent-pipe
12:34+ First thumbnail in. You can see the horizon and a wheel. We are on Mars.
"It's the wheel!"

12:36 More images - a higher-res image from the rear hazcam. There is dust on the lens covers, some sun-flares on lenses, and blurry horizon through the dust.

12:37 Horizon is clear, you can see rocks/pebbles - the surface of Mars, and a wheel.

12:38 Front hazcam image is down, Curiosity's shadow is clearly visible on Mars. Ody is now setting behind Mt Sharp; bent pipe is closed.

Mood: Landed

 

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In embedded systems, a lifetime is a long time

By Bill Graham

The recent news about the demise of the Mars Rover Spirit (Mike Deliman blogged about this last week) and comments about how it succeeded its mission many times over, got me thinking about just how long product lifetimes are for embedded products (see "End of Mars mission: Way beyond warranty" by Bob McDonald at the CBC). In many industries using embedded software to control devices, the expected lifespan is decades which contrasts sharply to consumer devices where either software is upgraded constantly or we dispose of the device in a few years. On the other hand, embedded systems often exceed originally planned lifespans many times over. Case in point is the Mars Rover program, where Spirit operated six years beyond its original mission plan and rover Opportunity continues operation, surviving a harrowing journey and landing and a harsh Martian environment for so many years.

The point here is that these types of embedded systems, mission critical software needs to operate flawlessly not for days at a time (Mars is a long way for a service call!) but continuously for decades. Because of this, its important the software platform is rock solid and can be supported for the lifespan of the product. It boils down to risk management. Programs like the Mars rovers had so many other risks in the hardware, the delivery system, landing and operation that it makes sense to reduce risk wherever possible. From the software perspective, risk reduction is possible by going with a proven and reliable software platform, so at least the developers don't need to re-invent the wheel with a custom operating system, device drivers, middleware and homegrown tools. Wind River has a long relationship with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and that trust and long term support has given the Mars Rover team the confidence they needed to trust an off-the-shelf solution.

We are sad to hear of the loss of rover Spirit but we're proud to be part of such a great space exploration success. We're equally proud to work with JPL and to have built up such a strong relationship with them. Indeed, lifespans of teams, relationships and products are often longer than anyone predicts.

 

And Then There Was One

By Mike Deliman

NASA concludes attempts to contact Mars Rover 'Spirit'

Last night the news of Spirit's mission coming to a close hit my mailbox.

For me, her journey started about eleven years ago.  A call from JPL came to my office phone, it was Glenn.  "Mike, we're putting the team back together, we're going back to Mars."

Those words were like music to my ears.  At the time, when completing the Mars Pathfinder project the thought occurred..."this, then, is the pinnacle of my career, the point  where I can mark as the top of my achievements."  This call changed all of that. There were other projects along the way, Gravity-Probe B and others, but Pathfinder had been fantastic!

Over 3 long years we worked as a team, cogs in a bigger machine making something incredible.  We all put in long hours, working all day on our mission, dreaming at night of what we were working on (it's a human thing).  They began to take on personalities of their own, MER-A being feisty as the "older twin", MER-B cooperating and living the charmed life of the youngest child.  Then came the competition where the children gave our babies their names - Spirit and  Opportunity.  These seemed to be very fitting of our offspring, Spirit surely was full of fitfulness, where as Opportunity was always moving forward.

The only point where Oppy was contentious was Launch Day.  Though she herself was ready, her rocket kept having one problem or another.  We assembled several times at Jetty Point to watch her ride her candle into the cosmos, alas my 2 weeks were up, I had to leave, and Oppy was still on the pad.

It was decided in order to make the launch window we would "borrow" Spitzer's Delta rocket.  That gave us the go-power to get to Mars on time.  And we did.

Yes, "we"...after living with the rovers in mind day and night for so long, the team began to identify with our robots, their efforts were ours, a shared thing. Like the pride you feel watching your child graduate, first from grade school, then high school.  It was like we were sending them off to college.  Imagine sending your 3-year-olds off to Cal Tech or MIT.

Seven months later came the graduation, in the "6 minutes of Terror" landing. They were now on Mars, where they would unfold their wings (solar panels) and begin their flight into their professional lives.

Crawling across the alien world they were on, Spirit again showed her fitfulness on SOL18, and later, as she suffered various maladies and growth-pains.  Oppy on the other hand, landed in a bowl full of science, and fulfilled the  Mission Goals all at once.  Layered rocks and "blueberries" were found within meters of her landing spot, proof that Mars had once had oceans, had once been very much earth-like in the early years.

It's been 7 years now, into their 3-month mission.  They've completed their mission 28-times-over.  Both rovers found proof of the earth-like Mars, in rocks, salts and formations.  Opportunity kept finding new places to explore, new wonderful things to share with us.  Spirit did as well, but suffered  arthritis (lost a wheel) and alzheimers (forgetting things writting to long-term storage).

Opportunity is currently rolling her way towards another distant crater, sporting improved software that can find interesting rocks for us to inspect, and image-identifying code that finds dust-devils in her landscape pictures. These small bits of improved software increase her science return.

With today's annoucement, Opportunity rides alone now.  Spirit has parked on a bad spot, we couldn't give her the extra energy she needed to winter over.

Spirit sleeps now forever in her spot on the Red Planet.

Rendezvous with a Rock

By Mike Deliman

MESSENGER spacecraft is approaching it's rendezvous with Mercury.  After flying for over 2400 days, in a little over 24 hours (from writing this)  MESSENGER will maneuver into orbit, the first time a satellite has orbited Mercury.  We hope to learn a lot about the composition of the surface and effects of solar weathering of the surface.  And there's the prospect of photographing the sun-side of the planet for the fist time!

In a few months, Dawn spacecraft will orbit Asteroid Vesta - the first time we've orbited an asteroid.  We hope to learn more about the composition of asteroids.   (We've landed on one, but technically it's harder to orbit than to land.  We've also successfully landed on a comet with Deep Imact...)  Dawn has not been in flight as long as MESSENGER, but it's orbital attempt is none the less impressive (Vesta is much smaller than Mercury).

Over the last ten years, we've redefined our undertstanding of how Mars evolved to it's present day, learned an incredible amount about the Sun, Moon, and Jovian planets, and even changed our definition of what "habitable" is - of where and how we should look for signs of life.  All of this helps change our understanding of how the solar system works, how planets work, and how we fit in the picture.

It fascinates and amazes me that we can design computers and robots capable of performing these incredible feats.  There's a software logo:  "where do you want to go today?"...let's consider:  Where do you want to go tomorrow, or in five to ten years?  I wonder what amazing things we will learn from the Sunlit side of Mercury.

Of course, by the way...VxWorks 5.3.1 for Rad6000 runs on both MESSENGER and Dawn.

 

Autonomy and Robotic Advancement

By Mike Deliman

A few months ago at the Robotics Virtual Trade Show, in my presentation I spoke about the evolution of robotic systems.  One thing I predicted was as time goes on, robots will become more independent and autonomous, performing more of the work humans and mainframe-style systems have traditionally performed.  

Among the robots I talked about were robots similar to NASA's 
Stardust Spacecraft  Stardust is currently on course for a Valentine's Day rendezvous with Comet Temple-1.  Stardust includes a package that performs autonomous navigation, d to help keep the craft on it's flight path with reduced intrusion from ground-based systems.  Since Stardust is so far out from earth, there is significant delay in round-trip communications.  Stardust is able to detect problems in trajectory and perform course correction maneuvers on its own.

Last week, Northrop Grumman had  first-flight for an evolution in Un-maned Aerial Vehicles.  The 
X47B UCAS   is an autonomous unmanned flight system.  It is not a wireless-joystick system.  It flies itself, taking off, figuring a course to it's way points, landing.  Without human intervention.

This, in general, is the trend of the robotic future.  There will be more "robots" in all sectors, the robots will become more autonomous, and perform more of the work regarding their duties than in the past.

In general a robot is an artificial entity that performs work for humans.  I broaden this definition to include telepresence systems (telerobotic surgeons, astronauts, and systems like aercams on the ISS), and lifestyle assistants (products such as drobo, tivo, and roomba).  My thoughts are that these consumer systems are both cutting edge, and primitive.

They are cutting edge in that they do some pretty incredible things in comparison with competing products that were available at the times these were invented.  They also pushed conventional wisdom about engineering and marketing, and created some cool and popular products.  They are primitive when you consider what technologies are available and how they could be used to upgrade these devices, and how these technologies will evolve over the next 5 years.  If you think about DVR boxes, you can get new DVRs from many makers,  yet used TiVos sell for over $200!  It's because TiVo can use the programming you record to automagically select other programs to record for you.  It anticipates and adapts based on your habits.  This capability differentiates it from other DVRs.  It does more work for you than others do.

This trend of more intelligence and autonomy will eventually blend its way into everything from automotive products to tourism.  It could lead to smarter cars that can detect when the driver's attention is lapsing or alert that it is unsafe to pass due to oncoming traffic.  There may someday be a system of telepresence pods anywhere on earth or even in orbit, where you could schedule a short vacation and experience a different world just by putting on a special helmet and gloves.  With such systems you could control a telerobotic diver and explore a sunken wreck, then change connections and view the Earth and stars from orbit... Possibly even while driving home from work. 

Such systems require many things to make real, among them is vision and technology.  With the proper technology your vision may be wrought into reality.  WindRiver is proud to be involved with programs like NASA/JPL's Stardust and Northrop Grumman's X47 UCAS.  Congratulations to X47B on successful first flight, and Stardust's upcoming Valentine's day rendezvous.

COTS in Space: Enter The Dragon

By Mike Deliman

Congratulations to Space Exploration Technologies Inc, on their successful venture into orbit.  By launching the Dragon into orbit, successfully orbiting the earth more than once, and returning to the ground, you've made history.

I wish I could have watched the launch and later the landing.  This is absolutely a historic event.

Given the cancellation of the Ares projects, and the recent failure of the launch of the GLONASS satellites, it would seem SpaceX has impeccable timing.

I don't think there was really a question about weather or not commercial entities could handle space exploration and the creation of rockets.  One of the big questions was "could it be done safely without all the oversight?"  As was pointed out in the NASA COTS press conference recently, one of the big cost-cutting features was less of the "Mother May I" game.  Part of the traditional oversight is an absurd level of control - once you've successfully completed one phase, you have to wait for the approval cycle before you start the next phase.  In the commercial sector the cycle is all internal - your boss says "yah, get busy, your deadline is last week!" - they don't have to submit a request to a committee for approval.  I have no doubt this could cut costs and save time.

I'm looking forward to seeing more of SpaceX's efforts and more launches!

Move over Space Shuttle, Commercial Orbital Transportation Services are getting ready to open.

Laws of Robotics

By Alex Wilson

As a member of the UK Institute of Engineering and Technology, and a keen science fiction fan, it is always great fun when I see mention of advanced robotics applications in space!

This month sees the article by Piers Bizony on "Robonaut flies in". This is a great article outlining the mission on the NASA Robonaut. Robonaut was included in NASA's STS-133 payload for testing on the International Space Station.

Image Courtesy of NASA

Wind River has been working with NASA on many space missions (See Mike Deliman's Blog), and this mission is no exception. Robonaut is running VxWorks on PowerPC based embedded systems at the "heart" of it's control system.

One interesting aspect of the article is the discussion of safety.  Safety, as we know, has many aspects and possible solutions. For industrial robots, anything that impacts safety is usually mitigated by shutting down the system to prevent further damage or harm. For Avionics systems involved in flight controls this of course would be a bad thing and the safety argument has to allow for continued aircraft operation after such an impact.

Robonaut in this respect has an additional challenge, it has to figure out if sensor readings mean it was supposed to interact with it's fellow astronauts or if they are a safety issue, and then act accordingly.

In actual fact, Robonaut is semi-autonomous as the article goes on to describe, with a Human operator controlling and "sensing" what Robonaut is doing - much like an Avatar - the control and feedback here is critical and hence the use of VxWorks as the trusted foundation for it's control system.

There is also a really interesting side panel article on use of Robonaut for a moon landing, with the human operator on the ground, where an additional challenge is the 1s delay in signal transmission from the command and feedback signals! This mission was also covered by Business Insider with the headline "NASA Will Save $149.5 Billion Sending A Robot Instead Of A Human To The Moon
"

This reminds me of another film I saw recently with Bruce Willis, Surrogates, I wonder if this is the beginning of a new era??