JPL planetary science summer school
I've finally had some time to organize my thoughts about the JPL Planetary Science Summer School (PSSS). First, mad props to to my advisor for suggesting I apply for this -- it seems mostly geared toward scientists, and I was one of four engineers there, out of 19 attendees.
The idea behind the PSSS is to select young (grad student, postdoc, early career) planetary scientists and aerospace engineers from around the country and pair them with members of JPL's "Team X" -- the team that runs concurrent engineering studies for proposed planetary science missions. After we were selected in June, we read the NASA New Frontiers Announcement of Opportunity (AO) and voted to design an Io flyby mission. We had weekly telecons, and spent our free time during the early summer surveying the current state of Io knowledge (largely from the Galileo mission) and determining which payloads would best address the scientific objectives specified in the AO.
The PSSS itself was held during the first week of August, and was filled with team work time, sessions with our Team-X counterparts, and of course some time to check out cool things going on at JPL. We saw the Mars Science Laboratory rover and descent stage in the clean room, a mock-up Spirit in the In-Situ Instrument Lab, and we sat in on a planning meeting for MER-B (Opportunity) sols 2324 (driving) and 2325 (remote sensing and AEGIS). Also during our afternoon work session on Tuesday one of the coordinators burst in with "do you guys want to see a giant robot?!?!" ...and we all ran outside to see this being tested in the parking lot by a group of students. It's a pair of tripod robots that can join together to transport pallets of equipment and crew habitat modules across planetary (lunar, Martian) surfaces. There are also attachments near each of the wheels for tools, which I gather enable it to do some excavating and/or assembly work as well. Since Constellation has been de-funded it's largely being used as a proof-of-concept.
The work sessions were excellent -- we were a highly motivated group, and we could not have had a more knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and gracious PI/Science Lead. I'll toot our collective horn for a second and say that I think we came up with a great mission concept, and the review board liked it as well. I only wish we could have had a few more weeks at this, to do some additional design tradeoffs and more detailed instrument specifications.
I didn't really have time to explore Pasadena or L.A. - there was no time during the week of course, and I spent most of the Saturday after the workshop with my roommate, doing some shopping and chatting before she had to catch her flight. I did, however, get to try Pinkberry frozen yogurt on Saturday, which is fortunate because if I'd tried it any earlier I would have been going there every day. Excellent stuff.
Another random observation is that the L.A. metro system wasn't bad by any means -- I took it both ways between the airport and Pasadena -- but the JPL-ers I spoke with were very surprised that I used it and gave the impression that nobody takes the metro. I guess it came a bit less frequently than I would have liked, but like I said it wasn't bad. Sadly there is no food or drink allowed on the trains; it was good that we were car-pooling to JPL every day since my normal morning routine in Toronto involves slowly achieving consciousness on the TTC with my travel mug full of coffee. The 'no food/drink' sign was right next to a pictorial sign with a big 'X' through a drawing of a blaring boom box. I wonder if that's been a problem. :-)
The idea behind the PSSS is to select young (grad student, postdoc, early career) planetary scientists and aerospace engineers from around the country and pair them with members of JPL's "Team X" -- the team that runs concurrent engineering studies for proposed planetary science missions. After we were selected in June, we read the NASA New Frontiers Announcement of Opportunity (AO) and voted to design an Io flyby mission. We had weekly telecons, and spent our free time during the early summer surveying the current state of Io knowledge (largely from the Galileo mission) and determining which payloads would best address the scientific objectives specified in the AO.
The PSSS itself was held during the first week of August, and was filled with team work time, sessions with our Team-X counterparts, and of course some time to check out cool things going on at JPL. We saw the Mars Science Laboratory rover and descent stage in the clean room, a mock-up Spirit in the In-Situ Instrument Lab, and we sat in on a planning meeting for MER-B (Opportunity) sols 2324 (driving) and 2325 (remote sensing and AEGIS). Also during our afternoon work session on Tuesday one of the coordinators burst in with "do you guys want to see a giant robot?!?!" ...and we all ran outside to see this being tested in the parking lot by a group of students. It's a pair of tripod robots that can join together to transport pallets of equipment and crew habitat modules across planetary (lunar, Martian) surfaces. There are also attachments near each of the wheels for tools, which I gather enable it to do some excavating and/or assembly work as well. Since Constellation has been de-funded it's largely being used as a proof-of-concept.
The work sessions were excellent -- we were a highly motivated group, and we could not have had a more knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and gracious PI/Science Lead. I'll toot our collective horn for a second and say that I think we came up with a great mission concept, and the review board liked it as well. I only wish we could have had a few more weeks at this, to do some additional design tradeoffs and more detailed instrument specifications.
I didn't really have time to explore Pasadena or L.A. - there was no time during the week of course, and I spent most of the Saturday after the workshop with my roommate, doing some shopping and chatting before she had to catch her flight. I did, however, get to try Pinkberry frozen yogurt on Saturday, which is fortunate because if I'd tried it any earlier I would have been going there every day. Excellent stuff.
Another random observation is that the L.A. metro system wasn't bad by any means -- I took it both ways between the airport and Pasadena -- but the JPL-ers I spoke with were very surprised that I used it and gave the impression that nobody takes the metro. I guess it came a bit less frequently than I would have liked, but like I said it wasn't bad. Sadly there is no food or drink allowed on the trains; it was good that we were car-pooling to JPL every day since my normal morning routine in Toronto involves slowly achieving consciousness on the TTC with my travel mug full of coffee. The 'no food/drink' sign was right next to a pictorial sign with a big 'X' through a drawing of a blaring boom box. I wonder if that's been a problem. :-)