Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT_ZIP/jplpaper/930618.ZIP/930618.UNI

Text File | 1993-08-09 | 28KB | 520 lines

Jet Propulsion Laboratory UNIVERSE
Pasadena, California - Vol. 23, No. 12 - June 18, 1993
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Employee survey results revealed

By Mark Whalen
     A survey of JPL employees conducted in March and April
indicates that "by and large, people like what they do at JPL,
but clearly there are impediments they feel prevent them from
doing as good a job as they can do and want to do," said
Laboratory Director Dr. Edward Stone.
     The director based his comments on a just-released
statistical analysis of the survey conducted by the Wyatt
Company, a human resources consultant. Wyatt and a JPL management
panel presented the results to employees June 11 in von Karman
Auditorium.
     In a 129-page report filled with raw numbers, charts and
analyses, Wyatt organized information in both "dimension" and
"item" form. A dimension, such as pay or communications, is a
grouping of questions relating to the same topic and describes a
key relationship between JPL and its employees; 15 such
dimensions were analyzed. Items were defined as one question
about a specific aspect of the dimension.
     Employees answered questions about various aspects of their
jobs, work environment, benefits, supervision and other topics on
a five-part sliding scale, ranging from "very good" to "poor" or
"strongly agree" to "strongly disagree."
     While survey participants, on the average, rated most
favorably dimensions about job content and satisfaction,
benefits, and job performance and review, the dimensions
receiving the least favorable average responses were management
effectiveness, decision making and compensation.
     Stone was encouraged by the survey's revelation that eight
out of 10 employees say they have a clear understanding of their
job, but the fact that management effectiveness received a
"favorable" response from only 34 percent of employees, he said,
means that "we need to understand what it is we do, or don't do,
that leads to those perceptions.
     "I don't think we understand employees' perceptions yet. In
order to be able to change, and address the perceptions, we need
to understand them."
     So, Stone said, "rather than managers trying to infer or
interpret what may be the basis" for employees' perceptions, in
the next few weeks focus groups composed of a cross-section of
JPL employees will be formed to "identify the underlying issues
that give rise to the perceptions in the survey." Once this is
done, he said, "we'll know what kind of change is needed.
     "Instead of fixing narrow problems," Stone added, "we want
to find out what the generic issues are. We will focus on a few
fundamentals, and if we address those, many of the details that
employees pointed out will follow."
     In noting that management will attempt to focus on issues
"that affect all employees," Stone said that while management
effectiveness ranked last among the 15 dimensions studied,
supervision ranked fifth. "In a certain sense, supervision is
part of management. We need to understand what separates
employees' feelings between these two dimensions."
     Those feelings were echoed in the final pages of the survey,
where employees were provided space to make additional comments.
From the estimated 5,000 separate comments from the 3,881
employees who completed the survey, 31 percent cited management
issues when asked what they would recommend if they could change
only one thing to improve JPL. Only 1 percent suggested changes
in supervision, Stone said.
     Sixty-one percent of JPL employees responded to the survey,
according to Wyatt. Although Stone called that return a
reasonable one, "it is also true that for some reason, almost 40
percent of employees did not participate in the survey. That in
itself is another important message, because it indicates the
challenge we have in engaging everyone in affecting change
Lab-wide."
     He added that "even without the opinions of 40 percent of
the employees, we feel we have a statistically valid sample of
employees' perceptions" about their jobs.
     The survey was conducted as part of the Laboratory's Total
Quality Management process, and falls in line with JPL's
Strategic Goal for employees, which states that "each JPL
employee will possess the skills, information, authority and
support necessary to accomplish his or her mission."
     Wyatt's statistical analysis report -- which is now
available for all employees to review through their section,
division or assistant Lab director offices, or at the JPL library
-- provided "Top 10" lists of the most and least favorable items.
The leaders: 94 percent of respondents reacted favorably to the
statement that in order for TQM to be successful, employees at
all levels must participate. On the other end of the scale, 60
percent of respondents reacted unfavorably to the statement that
JPL staff meetings frequently involve discussions about TQM and
its implementation.
     The report also analyzed survey results by demographic
characteristics, including employees' length of service, age,
family status, job level and education. Additionally, employees'
opinions were compared to high-tech companies in the private
sector where comparative data were available.
     Associate Laboratory Director Kirk Dawson said JPL intends
to repeat the survey "every 18 to 24 months. Most of the
questions on future surveys would be the same as the one we just
completed, which we would use as a baseline to measure our
progress." ###
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New instruments laboratory opens

By Diane Ainsworth
     About 150 people converged on the steps of the Lab's new
Observational Instruments Laboratory June 10 to watch JPL
Director Dr. Edward Stone cut the ribbon opening a new facility
for the next generation of observational flight instruments.
     The new laboratory -- Building 306 -- will house the
Laboratory's Observational Systems Division 38, which is devoted
to the design, assembly and testing of observational flight
instruments for planetary exploration and NASA's series of
Earth-observing missions.
     "This facility is the culmination of an idea that originated
13 years ago," Stone said in dedicating the new building.
"Advanced instruments will be an important part of the Lab's work
in the future ... (and) ... this facility will allow us to
continue development of new technologies for our work in
astrophysics, planetary investigations and Earth sciences."
     The $14.5-million Observational Instruments Laboratory,
known as the OIL building, is a four-story, 5,950-square-meter
(64,000-square-foot) laboratory for instruments that will be used
on future missions to remotely view and measure the Earth, the
solar system, planetary systems around other stars, the galaxy
and the universe.
     "Effectively, about one-half of the Cassini payload will be
developed here," said Dr. Charles Elachi, assistant Laboratory
director for the Office of Space Science and Instruments.
Elachi's office, OSSI, will assume programmatic responsibility
for most of the instruments developed in Building 306.
     The facility will house observational instruments such as an
interferometer to augment the  5-meter (200-inch) telescope at
Palomar Observatory near San Diego, Calif., Elachi said. The
interferometer is a testbed for an interferometer four or five
years from now that will connect the twin Keck telescopes on the
summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
     It will also become home to the Visible and Infrared Mapping
Spectrometer (VIMS), one of the cameras on the Cassini spacecraft
to Saturn, and the Multi-Angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR),
an Earth-observing instrument for NASA's Mission to Planet Earth.
     The building, located on the southeast side of JPL and
looking out onto Surveyor Road just east of Building 170, was
constructed to protect observational instruments from building
vibration, said Dr. William Whitney of Division 38, a
co-coordinator in the design and construction of the building.
     "That is an important feature in testing and calibrating
highly sensitive optical instruments," he said.
     One wing of the structure, adjacent to and on the east side
of the main corridor, houses a new, 430-square-meter
(4,600-square-foot) high-bay clean room. Like the high bay in
Building 179, the new OIL building high bay is designated a
"class 100,000" clean room, which means that particle counts in
the air cannot exceed a total of 100,000 particles per cubic foot
(about 28 liters) of a size of 0.5 microns or larger, Whitney
said.
     The first two floors of the facility contain a variety of
smaller clean rooms and specialized laboratories for delicate
optics work and interferometry work.
     Most of the ground-floor laboratories have concrete
equipment pads that are seismically isolated from the primary
foundation slab, Whitney added. One of those larger labs has been
built for "in situ" instruments -- instruments that will make
direct measurements of planetary surfaces or atmospheres.
     The third and fourth floors are offices for about 150 people
who will eventually be moving into the building, said Robert
Ibaven of Division 38, who co-coordinated design and building
construction with Whitney.
     The new occupants, who will move in gradually over the
summer, represent about one-third of the Observational Systems
Division, as well as staff who have been working in smaller
instrument-development laboratories spread across the Lab.
     Construction of the OIL building began in April 1991 under
contract to Kitchell Contractors, Inc., in Irvine, Calif. Gerald
Leonardi of JPL's Construction of Facilities Program Office
coordinated building design and construction as project
administrator. The building was designed by the architectural
firm of Albert C. Martin and Associates in Los Angeles.
     The Laboratory's next building priority will be construction
of the Flight Hardware Development Facility, a laboratory to
support fabrication and testing of spacecraft hardware and
science instruments, said William York, manager of JPL's
Construction of Facilities Program Office. Funding for the
project is currently under consideration at NASA Headquarters.
###
_________________________________________________________________

Ulysses soars to new heights
in unexplored regions of space

By Diane Ainsworth
     The Ulysses spacecraft has entered unexplored regions of the
solar system as it crossed on June 9 into the highest latitude
ever achieved relative to the sun's equator of more than 32
degrees, scientists on the joint NASA-European Space Agency (ESA)
mission reported.
     "Ulysses is gathering important new information about the
sun and its environment as it continues to journey farther south
toward the sun's southern pole," said JPL's Dr. Edward Smith,
NASA project scientist for the mission.
     "About one year from now, Ulysses will be 70 degrees south
of the sun's equator and begin its primary mission of exploring
the highest solar latitudes," he said.
     The heliosphere is the region of space carved out of the
interstellar medium by the solar wind, Smith said.  While
reaching higher latitudes with respect to the sun than Voyager 1,
the Ulysses spacecraft is not traveling toward the edge of the
heliosphere, as are both Voyagers, but rather is heading back
toward the sun.
     The spacecraft, launched by the Space Shuttle Discovery in
October 1990, used a gravity assist at Jupiter in February 1992
to dive out of the ecliptic plane and set its course in a highly
inclined solar orbit.  The spacecraft's trajectory will bring it
over the south pole of the sun in September 1994, at which time
Ulysses will climb to its maximum latitude of slightly more than
80 degrees.
     The spacecraft and its scientific instruments are in
excellent condition, the flight team reported. Data coverage
since launch has been consistently close to 100 percent, as a
result of efforts by the joint NASA-ESA mission operations team
and NASA's Deep Space Network.
     Although the most exciting phase of the mission -- the study
of the sun's polar regions -- will not begin until mid-1994,
Ulysses has already produced a wealth of new scientific results.
Those results include:
     -- The first direct detection of neutral helium atoms
arriving from interstellar space.
     -- The measurement of micron-sized dust grains arriving from
interstellar space.
     -- The first measurement of singularly charged hydrogen,
nitrogen, oxygen and neon ions, entering the heliosphere as
interstellar neutral atoms and then becoming ionized.
     -- The highest resolution measurements to date of the
isotopic composition of cosmic ray nuclei.
     In addition to these discoveries, Ulysses' path through
Jupiter's magnetosphere at the time of the February 1992 flyby
enabled mission investigators to acquire new and highly valuable
data concerning this very complex and dynamic plasma environment,
Smith said.
     "Among the most exciting results to emerge is the possible
entry into the polar cap of Jupiter's magnetosphere near the time
of closest approach (on Feb. 8, 1992)," Smith said, "and the
unexpectedly strong influence of the solar wind deep in the
magnetosphere during the outbound passage."
     With the Jupiter flyby safely accomplished, the scientific
focus is now directed toward phenomena related to the increasing
latitude of the spacecraft.
     "Already there is strong evidence that by the end of the
summer, Ulysses will be firmly in the domain of the southern
polar magnetic field, having permanently crossed the boundary
separating northern and southern fields," Smith said.
     Following the flight over the sun's southern pole, Ulysses'
orbit will bring the spaceprobe swinging back toward the sun's
equatorial regions, heading for its second high-latitude
excursion in mid-1995, this time above the north polar region.
     "By the end of September 1995, Ulysses will have put our
knowledge of the sun and its environment in a completely new
perspective," said Dr. Richard Marsden, ESA project scientist.
     "Only by studying the way the sun influences the space
around it in a global manner can we hope to understand its
influence on our local interplanetary environment."
     The Ulysses mission is a joint, five-year  study of the
sun's poles and interstellar space beyond the poles. The mission
operations center is headquartered at JPL and staffed by a joint
team of ESA/European Space Operations Centre and NASA
technicians. ###
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News briefs

     Lab employees who program 1750 central processing units
using the binary format can now expedite the task using software
offered by the the Electronic Parts Reliability Section 514.
     The software package, developed to support failure analysis
for the Cassini mission, consists of an assembler, a simulator
and an editor integrated into one package that runs on an
IBM-compatible personal computer.
     Using the assembler, which translates mnemonic data
representation to the binary format, the programmer can examine
small segments of a program. By displaying all internal
registers, the simulator allows the user to see each step that
the central processing unit executes. Thus, the user can save
hours by finding and debugging programming errors at the binary
level instead of at a higher programming level.
     To complement this software package, Section 514 also offers
a tool that converts 1750 numeric data representation between
decimal and binary for both integer and floating-point formats.
     To obtain a copy of the software, contact David Murphy at
ext. 4-8625 or Jim Wall at ext. 4-4588.

     The JPL Child Educational Center is now accepting
applications from Lab and community artists who are interested in
exhibiting their art work at the 14th annual JPL/CEC Art Fair
Oct. 15-17.
     All applicants' work will be judged, and exhibitors will be
selected on the basis of the quality and craftsmanship of their
work.
     Applications can be obtained by contacting Dawn Boyd at the
CEC at ext. 4-3418; the deadline to submit applications is Aug.
1. Applicants are urged to apply early due to the popularity of
the event with local artists.

     The JPL Amateur Radio Club will demonstrate its ability to
provide communications services under emergency conditions  when
it joins thousands of other radio clubs June 26-27 at Mount
Gleason in the Angeles National Forest.
     The activity, called Field Day, is essentially a contest in
which thousands of club members from the United States and Canada
attempt to contact as many different stations and bands as
possible within a 24-hour period. "They exchange stations and
class," explained Robert Polansky, chief engineer in Section 220.
Communication modes will be via voice, Morse code and digital.
     Setup will begin at noon, and the actual contest operations
start at 11 a.m. June 25. "Last year, JPL's Field Day activity
was well attended, with 45 setup people, operators and observers.
The club made more than 2,400 exchanges, placing 10th
nationwide," he noted. During national disasters, including
hurricanes and earthquakes, communities depend on amateur radio
operators, who "back up the local phone companies," Polansky
added, by communicating vital messages into and out of the
stricken areas.
     For information, call Polansky at ext. 4-4940 or Jay
Holladay at ext. 4-7758.

     JPL recently received a second-place award for 1992 from the
Greater Los Angeles chapter of the National Safety Council in the
category of lowest number of lost-time injuries for the year.
     In the chapter's Business and Industry Safety Contest, the
Lab achieved the award based on only 50 lost-time injuries last
year.
     The award was accepted by Robert Koukol, deputy manager of
JPL's Occupational Safety Office. ###
_________________________________________________________________

HRMS uses new technique
to study star formation

     JPL astronomers investigating how stars are born have used a
new technique to observe the motion of multiple clumps of gas
inside interstellar clouds that are on the verge of collapsing to
form new stars and planetary systems in the Milky Way.
     This experiment was made possible by new instruments
developed for the sky survey portion of the Lab's High Resolution
Microwave Survey (HRMS), which is searching for radio signals
that may be coming from technological civilizations on planets
orbiting distant stars.
     Our Milky Way galaxy contains large, massive interstellar
clouds of gas which are the nurseries for newborn stars.
Astronomers believe gravity causes these clouds to fragment,
collapse and produce smaller, dense clumps of gas. In time these
clumps collapse rapidly and form protostars, and ultimately stars
and planetary systems.
     "We hope that by finding and characterizing these small,
dense clumps of gas we can understand the star formation process
and why different types of stars evolve," said Dr. Thangasamy
"Velu" Velusamy, a member of JPL's Radio Astronomy Group in
Section 328.
     One way to study interstellar clouds is to detect the radio
emissions produced by a variety of molecules which are found in
the gas clouds.
     To detect the radio waves in the star-forming clouds,
scientists used the large 70-meter (230-foot) radio telescope at
Goldstone's Deep Space Network in conjunction with the 2 million
channel wide-band spectrum analyzer that is the heart of the HRMS
sky survey system.
     "What made our observations unique was that we were able to
take advantage of the HRMS spectrum analyzer to separate out the
motions of individual clumps of gas, which gave us unprecedented
velocity resolution," said Dr. William Langer, leader of JPL's
Radio Astronomy Group.
     "This instrument allows us to detect small-scale structures
in a star-forming region and study their motions with respect to
one another. This is especially important to resolve the question
of why some stars form alone, while others form companion systems
orbiting one another," Langer continued.
     In addition to Langer and Velusamy, Drs. Thomas Kuiper,
Steven Levin and Edward Olsen presented their findings recently
before the 182nd national meeting of the American Astronomical
Society at the University of California at Berkeley.
     Velusamy, director of the Ooty Radio Observatory in India,
is on sabbatical leave as a U.S. National Research Council senior
resident research assistant at JPL. ###
_________________________________________________________________

WF/PC-2 ships to Goddard after design changes

By Diane Ainsworth
     JPL's new Wide Field/Planetary Camera, designed to replace
the current camera on board NASA's orbiting Hubble Space
Telescope, was shipped June 1 from the Lab two years after major
design changes began in August 1991.
     The camera will be delivered to the Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Md., where it will be tested with spacecraft
and ground-system simulators before being shipped to Kennedy
Space Center in Florida for integration with the space shuttle,
said WF/PC-2 Program Manager Larry Simmons.
     "The Wide Field/Planetary Camera-2 was designed to restore
nearly all of the original imaging capability lost when an
optical flaw was discovered in the Hubble telescope's primary
mirror," Simmons said. "We modified the camera's internal relay
optics and made several other design changes to enhance WF/PC-2's
overall imaging capability."
     Four small relay mirrors inside the camera's four optical
trains have been polished to a new prescription that will cancel
the error in the curvature of the Hubble's primary mirror by
creating an error of equal and opposite magnitude, Simmons said.
     Small actuators will fine-tune the alignment of these
mirrors on orbit, assuring the optical quality that will be
required to image fine detail in star clusters, distant galaxies
and objects in the ultraviolet.
     After the camera has been tested at Goddard, it will be
delivered in mid-September to Kennedy Space Center, where it will
be readied for a Dec. 2 launch aboard the Space Shuttle
Endeavour.
     The camera is scheduled to be installed on the orbiting
telescope on the third day of astronaut extravehicular activities
during STS-61, the first of several Hubble servicing missions
designed to replace major components of the space telescope and
science instruments.
     About one month after installation, the new camera will be
ready to begin imaging science targets with its three wide-field
camera systems and one planetary camera system. The wide-field
cameras will provide extraordinary sensitivity for the detection
of star clusters and distant galaxies, while the planetary camera
will perform high-resolution studies of individual objects,
including planets and their satellites, nearby galaxies and other
stellar objects.
     WF/PC-2 will be able to detect objects 100 times fainter
than those visible from Earth-based telescopes, with about 10
times greater spatial resolution. The camera also has the unique
capability of imaging in the far ultraviolet, a capability that
is impossible from ground-based telescopes and limited, at best,
from space. ###
_________________________________________________________________

Portable keyboards taking on new shapes

By Mark Whalen
     A portable data-entry device invented by JPL engineer Gary
Friedman to help him take notes while away from his computer
could one day provide much wider applications.
     The "Data Egg," invented in 1990, allows single-handed data
entry while walking, running, driving, even lying down. It is
composed of seven keys, which users press in different
combinations to record letters, numbers and punctuation, as well
as technical functions.
     Friedman, a technical group leader in the Advanced
Engineering and Prototype Group, Section 366, created the device
after recognizing the physical limitations imposed by both
standard computer keyboards and new personal digital assistants.
     "This device frees you up; you no longer have to be sitting
down or anchored to a desk to use a computer," Friedman said. "It
allows you to capture ideas in places where even pen and paper
can't accommodate you."
     Friedman said the seven-button system utilized by the Data
Egg was invented several years ago in England for a personal
organizer called AgendA, "but it still needlessly anchored the
user to a desk and chair, a fault shared by the rest of today's
text-entry schemes," he said.
     Information can be recorded and saved on the Data Egg, and
can then be downloaded to any personal computer for display or
editing. The egg is also equipped to be hooked up to a PC as a
peripheral device, so data can be accessed immediately.
     Friedman said the portability of the Data Egg has several
advantages over a pocket tape recorder:  No transcribing is
needed, the egg can interface directly with a computer, and the
device is quiet and discreet.
     The most important use for the device, however, may come in
assisting users who are disabled or otherwise physically
impaired.
     Indeed, "a great many of 860 inquiries so far received about
the technology have come from disabled individuals, or people
requesting the information on their behalf," said Dr. Norman
Chalfin, staff specialist in the Technology Commercialization
Office, Section 891.
     Friedman has developed a device called the Bedridden
Workstation, which combines the Data Egg and a head-mounted
display called the Private Eye. This small screen is placed a few
centimeters in front of the viewer's eyes and displays a virtual
image of a computer screen one and one half to two meters in
front of the user.
     Friedman acknowledged that the sore point of the technology
may come in users having to learn a "new alphabet," the series of
mnemonic-device-assisted keystrokes utilized to create letters
and numbers. Data are entered by pressing the seven buttons in
combination to resemble the shape of a letter.
     "It's unknown how many Americans are going to be willing to
learn a new way to type," he said, "but I can now enter 30 words
per minute.
     "It is slower than typing, but the trade-off is that it's
more portable, and it's instantly accessible.
     "Those who understand the benefits are more than willing to
invest the hour or two it takes to learn the `alphabet,' " he
added.
     Actually, the Data Egg is somewhat of a misnomer, as the egg
shape only represents the shape of the original prototype. After
using the egg shape for a few months, Friedman found that the
design didn't accommodate different-sized hands, and he had to
use a strap to keep it on, which he found impractical and a
"nuisance."
     The second, functioning prototype was created from a gutted
standard pager, which proved both easier to hold in one hand and
large enough inside for microprocessor and memory components.
     Friedman said the Data Egg will be studied for space usage
before the end of the year. "Within NASA, we hope to make it
available for use by astronauts; it's the best way for an
astronaut who's floating in space to interact with a computer ...
if your feet aren't anchored to the floor and you start to press
downward on a keyboard, basic laws of physics say you're going to
start moving away from the keyboard.
     "There's no funding for it yet," he added, "but I hope the
studies lead to that."
     In the meantime, Friedman is working as a consultant to a
Sacramento company that is trying to market the device
commercially, something he thinks will happen by the end of the
year. ###

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