Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT_ZIP/jplpaper/930226.ZIP/930226.UNI

Text File | 1993-08-11 | 29KB | 550 lines

Jet Propulsion Laboratory UNIVERSE
Pasadena, California - Vol. 23, No. 4 - February 26, 1993
_________________________________________________________________

The future is now for JPL's
`faster, better, cheaper' goal

     The Caltech Management Association recently brought together
leading JPL experts for a panel discussion entitled, "Faster,
Better, Cheaper:  How JPL Is Doing It?," which sought to inspire,
encourage and motivate a standing room only crowd about the
changes ahead for the Laboratory.
     The moderator was Deputy Director  Larry Dumas, who began
the forum by giving the von Karman Auditorium audience a dose of
reality. "NASA's budget over the next several years will not
permit any new starts except for small or moderate-sized
missions," he said, "and JPL and its contractors need to be
believably faster, better, cheaper."
     The panel, whose job it was to address this issue, included
E. Kane Casani, former manager of the Miniature Seeker Technology
Integration (MSTI) project; Tony Spear, manager of the Mars
Environmental Survey (MESUR); Donna Pivirotto, team leader for
the Microrover; and Robert Staehle, preproject manager of the
Pluto Fast Flyby.
     Casani has the distinction of having tackled the first JPL
mission that falls into the faster, better, cheaper category --
MSTI -- which was recently completed on time and under budget.
     "We did MSTI for $15 million and we did it on schedule,"
Casani told the audience.
     Part of the secret of MSTI's success was involving everyone
who worked on the project and achieving a consensus early on
about how the mission was going to be completed. "We set the
schedule for one year and we all knew what we were talking
about," Casani said.
     Backing up that schedule was also important. "Every
subsystem was fully funded," he said. "Every division had the
money to do the job. We didn't have any cost overruns."
     Casani had some advice for his colleagues. "The challenge is
to do things with rapid development," he said. "We've got to
learn not to reinvent the wheel. It's important to contain the
scope of the job to the customers' requirements."
     Tony Spear heads up the next "small" mission to be
undertaken at the Lab. He told the crowd that MESUR/Pathfinder
will be the first of NASA's Discovery series of faster, better,
cheaper missions and it is due for launch in 1996.
     Spear said one of his biggest challenges is figuring out how
to do things differently. Such changes will require JPL to
reinvent itself, he said, and rethink the way the Lab currently
does business.
     "It takes hard work, and everyone at JPL must participate,"
Spear continued. "We have a lot of theory that now needs to be
brought into practice.
     "It will take daring and continuous effort" to make a
low-cost MESUR a reality, Spear said.
     "We're a fixed-price project.  We need to maintain
sufficient reserves, but we also need to accomplish a productive
mission and at the same time, we have to be attractive enough to
justify the mission. It's important to communicate the risks
involved with low-cost missions and to mitigate risk we will
assemble quickly and then test, test, test before we launch," he
concluded.
     One person who hopes Spear's team succeeds is Donna
Pivirotto, whose microrover is set to fly onboard MESUR/ Path-
finder as a technology experiment. The microrover's goal is to
evaluate the performance of small rovers on Mars' terrain.
     To get that job done, Pivirotto explained, "the Lab has had
to undergo a paradigm shift away from big rovers to small,
short-range rovers.
     "We've taken out some performance and added risk," she said,
"but we hope to get a big bang for a small buck."
     The microrover will use a majority of commercial parts, and
it will pick up where the development of Rocky IV left off.
Pivirotto prefers to call the rover a micro-spacecraft, because
it has all the functions of a typical planetary spacecraft, plus
it must interact with an uncertain and relatively hostile
environment.
     But it is not only the rover that is changing. The project's
management is daring, too. "We have no managers on this project,
so there is nobody in the way," she quipped as she explained that
she technically is the project's "team leader," not its
"manager."
     "What we are doing is flying the first autonomous rover, and
it's really a culture shock to the operations people," Pivirotto
continued.
     Rob Staehle knows what that feels like as he tries to put
together the first mission to Pluto. It will not be easy. With a
cost cap of $400 million, Staehle has tried to keep the
objectives very clear.
     "JPL has the people, the facilities and the experience to do
planetary exploration that is second to none. But we must
eliminate unnecessary work along the way," he said.
     Staehle and his team must figure out a way to control
mission operations costs, get to Pluto within eight years and get
the data back quicker. Such goals require taking greater risks.
"There is no 100 percent reliable mission," Staehle continued.
     He said he already has learned some lessons about how not to
get bogged down in the process. "One thing I have found valuable
has been to frequently and informally keep my managers and
sponsors aware of what's happening."
     The launch of the two spacecraft appears feasible for 1999,
with arrival at Pluto in 2007.
     After the two-hour discussion, many in the crowd seemed
buoyed by what they had heard and some expressed hope that these
projects would indeed become a reality. Key ingredients to
success, Dumas observed, appeared to be teaming with suppliers
and customers and having fun while taking on really tough
challenges. ###
_________________________________________________________________

New way of doing business
encourages Mercury team

By Mark Whalen
     It's becoming clear that the catchphrase "faster, better,
cheaper" is more than just a slogan at JPL. It is, indeed, a new
way of doing business, a new philosophy that has now paid off for
a small but ambitious JPL-led team working on a proposed mission
to Mercury.
     The 20-member team -- headed by Principal Investigator
Robert M. Nelson of JPL's Geology and Planetology Section 326 and
11 other Lab staff members -- combines science, engineering and
management disciplines to form the backbone of the Hermes Global
Orbiter mission concept, which was selected by NASA earlier this
month as one of 11 new projects in the agency's Discovery Program
to be funded for additional study.
     Nelson said Hermes was the only JPL project selected (with a
Lab scientist as principal investigator) out of 13 submitted. Lab
staffers are serving as co-investigators on some of the other 10
named by NASA.
     The Hermes mission and the other 10 Discovery class missions
each received $100,000 to support further development and to
"encourage further work," according to Nelson, who added, "It's a
morale booster" that NASA headquarters considered the project
worthy of further investigation.
     The 11 potential projects were selected out of an original
roster of 73 submitted to NASA at a workshop held at the San Juan
Capistrano Research Institute last November. Those selected were
those considered to have the highest scientific value as well as
a reasonable chance of meeting strict budgetary guidelines of no
more than $150 million.
     Nelson said the proposed mission -- with a targeted launch
date of September 2002 -- calls for a single spacecraft launched
by a Delta II rocket to be placed in an elliptical orbit around
Mercury for one Earth year (four Mercury years) after orbital
insertion. With two gravity assists each from Venus and Mercury
to minimize propulsion requirements, the spacecraft would begin
orbiting Mercury in August 2005.
     The mission's goals are to understand Mercury's surface and
interior structure. It would serve as a long-awaited follow-up to
the Mariner 10 flyby mission in 1974, when only half of the
planet was observed.
     "Hermes' first objective," said Nelson, "is to survey and
map the half of Mercury that has never been seen, and then to
determine the surface composition."
     Team member Rosaly Lopes-Gautier, a planetologist in the
Atmospheric and Cometary Sciences Section 324, underscored the
importance of Hermes' proposed objectives by drawing comparisons
to the results from early Mars missions, when "people talked of a
very cratered, moon-like planet. Then when Mariner 9 came along
and mapped the whole planet, it showed that (Mars') northern
hemisphere was totally different. It proved that just because you
have seen half of a planet, you can't assume you can extend your
knowledge to the other half.
     "There could be some considerable surprises on the other
side of Mercury," she said.
     Team member Linda Horn, a planetary scientist in Section
326, added that there are additional incentives to continue study
of the closest planet to the sun. "Radar measurements from Earth
have shown bright regions at Mercury's poles," she said,  "and it
has been suggested that there might be ice deep in the planet's
polar craters, where sunlight doesn't hit."
     Because Mercury is so close to the sun -- an average
distance of 58 million kilometers (about 36 million miles) away
-- protecting the spacecraft's instruments will pose a major
chal- lenge. Plans call for shading devices, insulation and
thermal inertia to protect the spacecraft when the solar
radiation and the thermal flux from Mercury are most difficult to
manage. The mission's payload contains an optical observation
facility, an ultraviolet spectrometer and a magnetometer.
     The mission utilizes a "clever orbital design," said Nelson.
"It will have a highly elliptical orbit, spending a short amount
of time close to Mercury. The spacecraft will take a lot of
science information while it is close to Mercury (and warming
up), and then it will go a great distance away from the planet
and spend long periods of time cooling off and sending back the
data."
     The Hermes spacecraft is one "that has flown many times
before," said Nelson, "but it will be modified to accommodate
Mercury's environment. We will do some instrument modification
also, but that will be done fairly early. In some cases we're
taking instruments that have flown before and making copies of
them.
     "Those are the principal ways we're going to perform the
mission cheaper than in the past," he added.
     The organization of the Hermes team may be the most
interesting facet of the proposed mission. "Most of the time,"
said Nelson, "scientists don't have a major role in mission
development, spacecraft design, ground systems design and
operations planning -- all those things you need to do to fly a
spacecraft.
     "From the start," he added, "we had engineers saying to
scientists, `you just can't do that observation with the
spacecraft and instruments we've got available. Let's think of
another way. '"
     Team member Adriana Ocampo, a planetary geologist in Section
324, said, "I think our team is comprised of `Renaissance-type'
people. We have a lot of different talents, and most of the team
not only has had first hand experience working with flight
projects, but they're scientists who understand the engineering
aspects of a mission."
     "There are a lot of advantages to having a small team,"
added Lopes-Gautier. "People are much more willing to work
together and chip in to do whatever needs to be done, rather than
say, `I'm a scientist; I'm not going to get involved in the
engineering aspects,' or vice versa. This can happen on the
bigger missions."
     In addition, six of the 20 team members are women, "an
extraordinarily high percentage," noted Ocampo.
     "We picked who we thought were the best people, and with the
number of women professionals in physical science at 7 percent, I
was really pleased that this many women were selected," said
Nelson.
     The next step for the Hermes team will come sometime next
year, when NASA conducts a more formal process to determine final
selection of missions to be conducted.
     The other Hermes team members from JPL are San-San Kuo,
Section 326; Arthur Lane, Section 732; Ken Manatt, Section 326;
Ray Morris, Section 317; William Smythe, Section 324; Brad
Wallis, Section 326; James Weiss, Section 326; and Chen Wan Yen,
Section 312. ###
_________________________________________________________________

Fitness Challenge
to start in March

By Toni Lawson
     NASA Headquarters is hosting its 3rd Annual Fitness
Challenge from March 1 through Aug. 31 and is encouraging JPL
personnel to participate.
     "The newly upgraded gymnasium in Building 180 has been
designed to encourage physical fitness at JPL, and can be used as
a vehicle for participation in the Fitness Challenge," said Dr.
Donal Sweeney, manager of JPL's Medical Services Office.
     "Since many other forms of exercise are also included in
this program," he added, "I am encouraging employee participation
in promoting positive health and exercise."
     To enter the sports award program, pick up a "sports log"
from Medical Services, Building 263, and keep track of your daily
exercise routine. The sports log will have a list of categories
for competition in areas such as walking,
     running, weight training and swimming, and the distance
required for the participant to meet each day. Participants are
able to go at their own pace and keep track of their own
distances.
     NASA Headquarters will present engraved plaques and
certificates to the top three centers with the highest employee
participation.
     The challenge is based on the national Presidential Sports
Award Program that was developed by the President's Council on
Physical Fitness and Sports in 1972. The program is intended to
motivate all Americans to become more physically active
throughout life, emphasizing regular exercise rather than
outstanding performance.
     For more information about the competition, call Lori James
of Medical Services at ext. 4-3320. ###
_________________________________________________________________

Dipprey to retire, Dawson named associate director

By Diane Ainsworth
     Kirk M. Dawson will become JPL's associate director March 1,
succeeding Dr. Duane F. Dipprey, who will retire at that time,
JPL Director Dr. Edward Stone has announced.
     Dawson, who has been assistant laboratory director of JPL's
Office of Technical Divisions since 1987, will now oversee the
areas of institutional infrastructure and information systems,
and direct the Lab's management plans and processes.
     Dawson joined the Laboratory in 1962 and has held a variety
of key technical and managerial positions. He served as deputy
assistant laboratory director for technical divisions from 1982
to 1987 before becoming assistant laboratory director for that
office.
     From 1968 to 1982 he held supervisory and managerial
positions in the Power Systems Group, Guidance and Control
Systems and Research Section, and Control and Energy Conservation
Division.
     Among his many professional achievements, Dawson was past
president in 1968 of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE). He served as  chairman of the IEEE Aerospace
Energy Conversion Committee and as treasurer of the American
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Power
Conditioning Specialist Conference. He is also a member of the
honorary societies Sigma Pi Sigma and Kappa Mu Epsilon.
     Dipprey is a 40-year veteran of JPL and has been associate
director since 1991.
     He joined the Laboratory in 1953 and held key technical and
managerial positions in the fields of propulsion, energy
conversion, heat transfer, control systems and mechanical systems
before becoming manager of the Mechanical and Chemical Systems
Division in 1978.
     In 1986, Dipprey was appointed assistant laboratory director
for Defense and Civil Programs, which later became the Office of
Technology and Applications Programs, responsible for JPL's
technology research and development base and for projects
applying technology capabilities to tasks outside of NASA's
programs.
     Among his professional accomplishments, Dipprey was awarded
NASA's Outstanding Leadership Medal in 1985.
     Both Dawson and Dipprey are residents of La Canada
Flintridge. ###
_________________________________________________________________

News briefs

     JPL will receive the 1993 Corporate Innovation Recognition
award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
(IEEE), the world's largest technical professional society. The
Lab was cited for its innovations in electrical, electronics and
computer engineering, particularly regarding space exploration.
     The award will be presented to Lab Director Dr. Edward Stone
at the IEEE's annual honors ceremony Feb. 27 in Chicago.

     The Director's Advisory Council for Women is sponsoring
Women's History Month in March, and plans a series of seven
seminars on a variety of topics from March 3-31.
     Guest speakers will discuss women and the law; issues of
sisterhood; gender bias in the classroom; the role of women in
society; coping with breast cancer; women at JPL during the first
50 years; and women making history at JPL.
     Each seminar runs from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. For
information call Melissa Nieto at ext. 4-2373.

     A workshop called "Technologies and Techniques for Small,
Affordable Scientific Instruments," to be held March 8-9 from 8
a.m to 5 p.m. in von Karman Auditorium, will be of interest to
anyone who is involved in building or using scientific
instruments.
     Topics include system design and engineering, detectors and
transducers, remote sensing, coolers, electronic design, optics,
structures and materials, thermal design, mechanisms and
actuators, microtechnology and implementation.
     A keynote address by Dan McCleese, manager of the Space
Sciences Division, will be followed by presentations on relevant
JPL programs. For more information, call Sue Officer, ext.
4-7696.

     JPL's Running Club will sponsor the Voyager Grand Tour, a
marathon relay race, on March 10, starting at 11:45 a.m. from
Forest Service Road above the East Parking Lot.
     Six runners per team will run to different destinations, and
the distance will add up to the marathon distance of 26.2 miles.
Runners will compete simultaneously, so a typical team is
expected to complete the race in about 35 minutes.
     To ensure a competitive race and to encourage runners of all
speeds to participate, teams are limited to a total speed of 48
mph; faster teams are required to run farther than 26.2 miles.
     Call Sam Dolinar at ext. 4-7403 for information.

     The JPL Employed Caregivers On-Lab Program will present a
lecture and discussion on Alzheimer's disease on March 10 at noon
in Building 111-117.
     Dr. Susan McPherson, a staff member of UCLA's
Neuropsychiatric Institute and director of the Los Angeles
Alzheimer's Outreach Program, will present an education update on
research and intervention for Alzheimer's victims and their
families.
     According to the Alzheimer's  Association, the disease
affects more than 4 million Americans and is the fourth leading
cause of death in this country.
     The program is free. Call Dr. Michael Stafford of JPL's
Employee Assistance Program at ext. 4-3680 for more information.

     American Heritage Week, sponsored by the Advisory Committee
for Minority Affairs, kicks off the June 1-4 event with its
logo/slogan search.
     Original art is preferred for the logo, and the deadline is
March 22 for both logo and slogan. All interested employees are
asked to submit entries for the design, which will be used for
all advertising concerning the event. This year's winners will
each receive a cash award of $25.
     Entry forms are available at the ERC and the 167, 190 and
303 cafeterias, or by calling Ken White at ext. 4-1810. Include
your name, mail stop and extension with your entry.
     Ethnic groups not currently participating are encouraged to
get involved. Contact Nerissa Parmelee at ext. 4-6352 or Mary
Pickering at ext. 4-8669.

     The JPL Library has added new titles to provide employees
with additional information on Total Quality Management.
     Available titles now include "Company-Wide Total Quality
Control" by Shigeru Mizuno and "The Deming Guide To Quality and
Competitive Position" by Howard Gitlow and Shelly Gitlow.
     The library also has a NASA bibliography of articles and
reports on continuous improvement, and is working on compiling
similar resources for TQM information.
     Call the library reference office at ext. 4-4200.

     All Lab organizations are encouraged to repackage used laser
printer cartridges and send them to mail stop 171-B so that they
may be refurbished and used again.
     In only a few weeks, the Lab collects from 1,000 to 1,200
used cartridges (the equivalent of four to five skid loads
amounting to some 6.8 cubic meters). ###
_________________________________________________________________

Lab to assess need for
secretarial certification

By Karre Marino
     JPL's Professional Development Section is assessing the need
for a Certified Professional Secretarial program, which would
include instruction in six areas of study in preparation for the
six-part CPS exam offered twice yearly.
     The CPS program, according to Betty Shultz, personnel
specialist in Professional Development, would be taught in the
evenings at the Professional Development Center (Building 605) by
instructors from a local college. Certification requires that
secretaries be versed in the areas of accounting, office
procedures/administration, business, behavioral science and
business, economics and management and office technology. The CPS
exam is given over a two-day period, and individuals have five
years to pass all six parts.
     "For some secretaries, being certified is very much a
personal goal. It's about reaching a level of achievement in your
career," explained Paula Costantino, president of the Pasadena
chapter of Professional Secretaries International.
     Shultz concurred, noting that at JPL, passing the CPS exam
may mean a salary increase.
     Costantino admitted that the test is "tough and takes
commitment. But it's worth it in terms of personal satisfaction.
It also indicates to a current or prospective employer that a
person is serious about her or his career. She or he has made a
choice and won't be moving on to another position in a year or
so. A CPS certified secretary is interested in doing the best job
possible."
     Secretaries who have passed the exam must be recertified
every five years, said Costantino, who is a senior executive
secretary with the Parsons Company. "That means either taking
college-level courses or appropriate seminars, or even becoming a
member of the Professional Secretaries International board."
     Of the approximately 400 secretaries on staff at JPL, only
about 20 are CPS certified, according to Eve Zimmerle, senior
administrative secretary in Section 622, and Director's Advisory
Council of Women vice chairperson. "We'd like to see that change.
We're looking for at least 25 to 30 secretaries who would commit
to taking the CPS course," she noted, since the cost of the
course is divided by the number of participants. Those interested
will be asked to offer written confirmation.
     "JPL reimburses employees after they've successfully
completed each module of the course. Books are extra and their
cost is not reimbursed," Shultz said.
     Dora Fossa, an executive secretary in Section 512, who
received her certification in 1991, said that each of the six
modules cost an average of $120, with books ranging from $35 to
$40.
     Classes generally meet after work twice weekly for about
three to four hours.
     More than 34,000 secretaries have received their
certification since the CPS program began in 1952.
     Secretaries interested in enrolling in the program should
contact Shultz at ext. 4-3750. ###
_________________________________________________________________

Students `shadow' JPL staffers

By Mark Whalen
     Students at Eliot Middle School took advantage of a chance
to see what it's like to work at JPL on Feb. 11, as the Lab's
Public Services Office hosted the first of two rounds of the 6th
Annual Shadow Day.
     One hundred twenty JPL employees and their "shadows" spent
four and a half hours together so that the sixth- to
eighth-graders at the Lab's adopted school could be exposed to
the diversity of opportunities available here.
     "We need to recognize that students at this age represent
the JPL employees of the future," said Kimberly Lievense, manager
of the Public Services Office.
     "It's important for us to get them interested in science
now, or it may be difficult to fill those positions later."
     Of course, not everyone at JPL is a scientist, and
participating employees represented vocations of all kinds, from
engineers to programmers to clerks to secretaries.
     One JPL employee who gave of her time was Karen Deutsch, a
member of the Galileo science data team. She was shadowed by
eighth-grader Consuela Holmes.
     Deutsch noted that "most of us, especially children, have
perceptions of what scientists should look like," adding that
Holmes  expressed surprise when she saw that "most people weren't
dressed in three-piece suits."
     Deutsch added that in addition to talking about her own job,
she took Holmes on a quick tour of the Observation Room in
Building 230, "something I've never had the chance to do myself."
     More JPL staffers and students will participate in another
Shadow Day on March 4 at the Oak Grove facility only.
     Employees will have students with them from 9:30 a.m. to 2
p.m., and those who took part in the first Shadow Day are welcome
to share part of their day once again, said Lievense.
     JPL employees who are interested in participating in the
second Shadow Day should contact Kimberly Johansen of the Public
Services Office on Monday, March 2, at ext. 4-2413. ###
_________________________________________________________________

Ulysses mysteriously shuts down

By Diane Ainsworth
     The Ulysses spacecraft mysteriously shut its science
instruments off and stopped sending data to Earth on Feb. 14,
leaving ground controllers incommunicado for more than five
hours.
     The problem, which has occurred once before, was considered
"a glitch" by the Ulysses' operations team, not too serious but
also not minor, because the cause of the anomaly was unknown.
     "Certainly (the anomaly's) effect on mission operations is
serious, because it took several days to get everything back up
and running," said Peter Beech, European Space Agency (ESA)
mission operations manager for the ESA spacecraft. "But we're 99
percent back to normal now, and the spacecraft is performing
perfectly."
     Ground controllers spent three days turning the spacecraft's
science instruments back on, said Donald Meyer, NASA's deputy
mission operations manager at JPL. All but one instrument -- the
Solar Wind Ion Composition (SWIC) experiment -- were fully
operational as Universe went to press. SWIC operates at high
voltage and required several days of incremental voltage
increases before it was operating normally, Beech said.
     The spacecraft was being tracked by the Deep Space Network
antenna near Madrid, Spain, when the anomaly occurred at about
4:50 p.m. PST Feb. 14. The spacecraft went into a safe mode,
shutting off all instruments and switching to a backup radio
transmitter.
     Engineers continued to receive Ulysses' radio signal, but
received no science data or telemetry about the spacecraft's
condition and performance. New commands took about 40 minutes to
reach the spacecraft, Beech said. Science data and engineering
telemetry resumed five hours and 10 minutes later.
     An investigation of the problem has begun, although
operations team members are not optimistic that an answer will be
found.
     "We investigated this the last time it occurred in June 1991
and never reached a conclusion," Beech said. "The anomaly could
have been anything -- transient events out in space or onboard
the spacecraft. I don't think this is anything that we will be
able to identify positively."
     Ulysses, a joint NASA-European Space Agency mission to study
the poles of the sun, is about 18 degrees south of the ecliptic
plane, slowly looping its way back toward the sun. The spacecraft
will begin its primary mission in June 1994, when it starts a
four-month pass over the sun's southern pole. ###