Chris Bergin of NASASpaceflight.com also prepared an excellent article about our Space Act Agreement with NASA LaRC: Altius Signs SAA with LaRC for Compactly Stowable Manipulator Development
Altius Space Machines Signs Space Act Agreement with
NASA Langley Research Center
Louisville, CO, September 4, 2012
Altius Space Machines of Louisville, Colorado is pleased to announce that we have signed a non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement (SAA) with NASA Langley Research Center of Hampton, Virginia, to develop concepts for a new series of compactly-stowable long-reach spacecraft robotic manipulators.
This SAA reflects a very high degree of cooperation and synergy between commercial and government space organizations and should be mutually beneficial to both Altius and NASA. Altius will combine NASA’s expertise in manipulator systems with its mission concepts and payload capture technology to jointly create a new and novel Compactly Stowable Manipulator (CSM). As the name suggests, the CSM will have a very small packaging volume, yet be capable of highly-dexterous, long-reach operations. When combined with a non-cooperative payload capture technology, the CSM would also enable satellite servicing, small-package delivery/return, and rendezvous/capture of nanosat-scale free flyers or sample return canisters.
Commercial crew and cargo transportation vehicles and NASA exploration vehicles, such as the Orion spacecraft could accrue significant benefits if a robotic arm with performance capabilities similar to the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS), but having much higher packaging efficiency, could be developed to fit on such vehicles. Such an extendable/retractable RMS-class manipulator would enable inspection and repair of the vehicle windward and backshell TPS on missions to destinations other than the ISS and would additionally assist in EVA activities.
The NASA Space Technology Game Changing Development Program (in the Office of Chief Technologist) as well as NASA Langley’s Space Technology and Exploration Directorate will gain knowledge from the commercial requirements and systems engineering input provided by Altius, which will link very long-reach tendon-actuated manipulator technology development to commercial space missions. These new mission concepts and the technology developed for NASA’s Human Robotics System Project under this SAA have the potential to open up completely new lines of commercial-space operations in payload handling, servicing, repair, and assembly.
Research performed at orbital facilities such as the International Space Station (ISS) could be dramatically more agile and competitive if there were a means for providing small-package payload delivery and sample return on a just-in-time basis. A long-reach manipulator system, such as the system that will be investigated under this SAA, would be capable of capturing or releasing small vehicles (both cooperatively and non-cooperatively) at a safe distance from ISS. As a result, these small vehicles might not be required to station-keep relative to ISS, enabling them to deliver and return payloads safely and affordably by providing just-in-time payload transport services.
Together, Altius and NASA Langley Research Center will further develop and refine the mission requirements, concepts, and technologies that could make these new and valuable commercial payload delivery/return missions viable.
About Altius Space Machines, Inc.
Altius Space Machines is a Louisville, Colorado based space technology company founded with the goal of reducing the barriers to space commerce. Altius is currently developing rendezvous and docking solutions using its Sticky Boom™ non-cooperative capture technology, for space stations and propellant depots, manned spaceflight, satellite servicing, and other applications. For more information visit www.altius-space.com
About NASA Langley Research Center
Solving the tough problems in air, space and earth science is what NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia is known for. Its reputation for exceptional research started soon after Langley was established as the United States’ first civilian aeronautics laboratory in 1917. Researchers at Langley are focusing on some of the biggest technical challenges of our time: global climate change, access to space and revolutionizing airplanes and the air transportation system. For more information visit www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/home/index.html
# # #
Press Contact:
William Bolton
VP, Business Development
Altius Space Machines
303-827-1574
boltonw@altius-space.com
Just a quick note that Bill has put the finishing touches on a careers/internships page on our site, with details on four positions, including the two mechanical engineering positions previously mentioned, an executive assistant position, and an aerospace/mechanical/systems engineering internship position. This way I don’t have to clutter up the blog with extensive details on each specific position.
Oh, and I did enjoy writing the job blurbs. Why do you ask?
As fall is coming up, Altius is pleased to announce additional internship/student engineer opportunities. These opportunities will continue to provide students a chance to participate in cutting-edge space robotics development as we continue to work to bring our Sticky Boom™ technology to market. In addition to 3-4 month internship positions, Altius is also offering longer-duration, part-time “Student Engineer” positions for interested candidates located in the Denver/Boulder Colorado area.
We currently (as of 8/13/12) have two mechanical engineering positions available, and will probably also be adding one more mechanical/aerospace engineering position and a non-technical operations management/executive assistant internship position in the coming days, so watch this space for further updates.
Fall 2012 Internship Positions [Updated: 8/3/12]
Here are two updated internship/student engineering positions:
Job Title: Mechanical Engineer Intern #1, Fall 2012
* JOB DESCRIPTION
Design and build mechanical parts for a novel electromechanical robotic system being developed for space applications of satellite servicing and removal of orbital debris.
Assist in developing system requirements for a second electromechanical robotic system that will be used to support non-cooperative rendezvous and docking for deliveries to space facilities. Support other engineering efforts at Altius as opportunities arise.
* QUALIFICATIONS
Minimum requirements:
- Significant experience with at least one CAD program
- Experience preparing part/drawings for manufacture, preferably some personal experience fabricating parts with machine shop equipment (mills, lathes, general rapid prototyping, CNC controlled machines)
- Extracurricular mechanical/mechanism design experience
- General mechanical aptitude; understanding of design processes (proper concept generation and selection based on mechanism requirements)
- Good teamwork, interpersonal and communication skills
Desired skills/experience:
SolidWorks experience is strongly preferred; kinematic analysis; experience with SolidWorks/Motion. Programming (C, C++, and/or MATLAB/Simulink), prototype-level electronics, and robotic force control experience would each be a plus.
Position is for a full-time internship for Fall 2012; however, some accommodation may be made for the right candidate to support a 3/4 time, or even a half-time position.
Altius supports flexible working arrangements to accommodate campus and personal time requirements when possible.
U.S. citizenship or U.S. permanent residency required.
Job Title: Mechanical Engineer Intern #2, Fall 2012
* JOB DESCRIPTION
Design and build mechanical parts for a novel electromechanical robotic system being developed for space applications of satellite servicing and removal of orbital debris. Support electronic prototype design and build to support mechanical test rig and data acquisition.
Assist in developing system requirements for a second electromechanical robotic system that will be used to support non-cooperative rendezvous and docking for deliveries to space facilities. Support other engineering efforts at Altius as opportunities arise.
* QUALIFICATIONS
Minimum requirements:
- Significant experience with at least one CAD program
- Experience preparing part/drawings for manufacture, preferably some personal experience fabricating parts with machine shop equipment (mills, lathes, general rapid prototyping, CNC controlled machines)
- Prototype-level electronics and embedded software experience
- Extracurricular mechanical/mechanism design experience
- General mechanical aptitude; understanding of design processes (proper concept generation and selection based on mechanism requirements)
- Good teamwork, interpersonal and communication skills
Desired skills/experience:
SolidWorks experience is strongly preferred; kinematic analysis; experience with SolidWorks/Motion. Programming (C, C++, and/or MATLAB/Simulink); and robotic force control experience would each be a plus.
Position is for a half-time internship for Fall 2012; however, some accommodation may be made for the right candidate to support a 3/4 time, or possibly even a full-time position.
Altius supports flexible working arrangements to accommodate campus and personal time requirements when possible.
U.S. citizenship or U.S. permanent residency required.
Application Instructions
For any internship position, please send cover email, with resume, to resumes@altius-space.com describing the unique way your qualifications and interests match this position, along with your course summary, GPA, and a description/photo of an extracurricular mechanical design project you have previously built. Please also clarify your interest in the full-time, 3/4-time or 1/2-time work.
Altius Space Machines Signs Contract to Develop
Single-DOF STEM Arm for Space Situational Awareness and Oscillation Damping
For the DARPA Phoenix Technologies Program
Louisville, CO, July 30th, 2012
Altius Space Machines of Louisville, CO is delighted to announce that we have signed a contract with DARPA to provide engineering services as part of the DARPA Phoenix Program. Associated with Altius Space Machines in this contract is ROCCOR LLC. of Louisville, CO., Ecliptic Enterprises Corporation of Pasadena, CA and The University of Colorado at Boulder, CO.
The goal of the Phoenix Technologies Program is to develop and demonstrate technologies to enable repurposing valuable components from retired, nonworking satellites in geosynchronous orbit and demonstrate the ability to create new space systems at greatly reduced cost.
Altius will be providing DARPA with engineering services to develop and integrate a storable tubular arm (STEM) for use as a platform for situational awareness cameras and lights, and as a tool to reduce unwanted vibrations on parts of the target spacecraft caused during the component removal and repurposing operations.
The STEM arm utilizes a composite material that forms a tubular shape as it unrolls from a stored coil. This allows a long arm to be deployed and retracted into a compact package. The STEM tube and deployer hardware will be developed by Roccor LLC. Mounted on the end of the arm will be a camera/sensor suite to be developed by Ecliptic. The University of Colorado intends to explore contact compliance control calculations and robotic control software necessary to damp out any unwanted oscillations in the target spacecraft.
About Altius Space Machines, Inc.
Altius Space Machines is a Louisville, Colorado based space technology company founded with the goal of reducing the barriers to space commerce. Altius is currently developing rendezvous and docking solutions using its Sticky Boom™ non-cooperative capture technology, for space stations and propellant depots, manned spaceflight, satellite servicing, and other applications.
For more information visit www.altius-space.com
# # #
Press Contact:
William Bolton
VP, Business Development
Altius Space Machines
303-827-1574
boltonw@altius-space.com
It’s been a while since we’ve done any sort of update on the Altius blog, so I wanted to do a quick introduction to our three summer interns and the projects they’re working on. I will get some more pictures and do more frequent updates as time permits. Apologies in advance for having to be a bit of a tease about these projects. We should be free to talk more publicly about most of them fairly soon.
Kevin Ferrant: Orbital Dynamics Intern
Kevin is a grad student at CU Boulder working on his Master’s degree in Aerospace. He got his Bachelor’s in Aerospace from UT Austin. We brought Kevin on to start analyzing the orbital dynamics of using Sticky Boom™ for arrivals and departures from orbital facilities such as the ISS. We were able to get a good deal from AGI on their STK/Astrogator software for the summer, so Kevin has been working with Astrogator and with some numerical simulations in Matlab using the Clohessy-Wiltshire equations for relative motion, primarily focused so far on departures of micro-return vehicles from the station. We’d like to thank two mentors who Kevin has been working with: Mike Loucks of Space Exploration Engineering Corp. (who is a flight dynamics guru who’s been involved with LADEE, IBEX, and many other missions) and Dr David Geller of Utah State University.
We have a Sticky Boom™-related project we hope to be announcing in the coming weeks that will be using Kevin’s orbital dynamics work as one of the inputs.
Peter Brun: Mechanical Engineering
Peter is a Junior in Mechanical Engineering at CU Boulder, with previous Bachelor’s degrees in Digital Fine Arts and Photography from the University of Washington. Peter has a pretty impressive portfolio site highlighting a lot of the electromechanical projects he has done over the years including building his own CNC machine tools and building moving art systems some of which have been on display at the Louvre! Peter is currently working with Mike Judson on a project to do some preliminary prototyping on a synthetic Gecko-adhesive gripper that ultimately we hope will be able to conform to and grip arbitrary objects in space for Sticky Boom™ and other related applications. Peter put together a simple microcontroller-based DAQ system for the tensile test rig he and Mike designed and built over the past two weeks.
Nathan Mogk: Mechanical/Materials Science Intern
I met Nathan at the SEDS Student Business Plan Competition this last fall, and ran into him again at the Space Access conference down in Phoenix in April. He recently graduated from the University of Arizona with dual Bachelors degrees in Materials Science and Mathematics. Nathan is working with me on a project I briefly hinted at during my Space Access presentation, which will be testing out a novel manufacturing process that may be useful for a wide range of aerospace and non-aerospace applications (including STEM booms, rocket propellant tanks, rocket engines, aircraft structures, car frames, and even high-end sports equipment). I’ve been researching the idea and laying the groundwork for this for most of the time we’ve had Altius running, but Nathan will be helping us develop and hopefully implement the proof-of-concept test plan to help us figure out if my crazy idea can actually be made to work.
Anyhow, I wanted to introduce the interns while we were still relatively early in the summer. I’ll hopefully be able to talk more about their projects in the coming days and weeks. But for now, you at least have a teaser of what we’ll be up to this summer.
[Update 5/30/2012: Altius has now filled its summer internship positions, but is still accepting internship or student employment applications for fall (Sept through Nov/Dec) and Spring (Jan-Mar/Apr 2013) in the same three categories. Please let us know which time window you're applying for in the coverletter.]
Are you tired of getting internship offers from Mojave rocket companies trying to lure you out to the desert with tales of glory, adventure, and mach diamonds the size of your head?
Not a big fan of 110F summers with blowing sand where you have to drive for over an hour to reach signs of civilization?
Are you a gearhead or roboticist who hates thermodynamics and fluids dynamics, but wants to do something space-related?
Or are you a budding orbital dynamicist who wants to show off your astrogation virtuosity, but would prefer to be working on a project that’s actually likely to fly?
Or have you always just been wanting to say that you had worked a summer building tractor beams?
If any of these apply, we may have the internship for you.
Altius Space Machines is accepting resumes for paid internship positions this summer and fall at our Louisville, Colorado location in the fields of orbital mechanics, robotics, and mechanical engineering. Altius is a small aerospace startup focused on developing spacecraft robotics system for non-cooperative capture, space station deliveries, and space debris mitigation. Our summer and fall internships will last for approximately three months each, and span from approximately June-August, and September-November, though we are flexible with start and stop times.
Here are some further details on the three internship areas we are offering:
Orbital Mechanics Internship
* JOB DESCRIPTION
Perform orbital dynamics analysis for a novel rendezvous and capture approach which will enable faster logistics turnaround of space station payloads, much more cost-effectively than traditional rendezvous and docking methods. Assist in developing system requirements for a novel electromechanical robotic system that will be used to support non-cooperative rendezvous and docking for deliveries to space facilities. Support other engineering efforts at Altius as opportunities arise.
* QUALIFICATIONS
The ideal candidate will have completed educational coursework in orbital dynamics, with orbital rendezvous experience strongly preferred, and have a strong background with STK Astrogator and MATLAB/Simulink.
Additional Desired Skills/Experience: kinematic analysis, robotic path planning.
Space Robotics Internship
* JOB DESCRIPTION
Design, simulate, and test path-planning algorithms and robotic force control algorithms for a novel electromechanical robotic system being designed for space applications of non-cooperative rendezvous and docking, satellite servicing and removal of orbital debris.
Assist in developing system requirements for a novel electromechanical robotic system that will be used to support non-cooperative rendezvous and docking for deliveries to space facilities. Support other engineering efforts at Altius as opportunities arise.
* QUALIFICATIONS
The ideal candidate will have hands-on extracurricular robotics experience and will have completed educational coursework involving embedded systems software, robotic path planning algorithms, the mechanical engineering of mechanisms, and applied robotic force control. Candidates with educational coursework or hands-on experience in any two of these areas, with interest or plans in the other areas, will be considered.
Additional Desired Skills/Experience: kinematic analysis, embedded programming (C, C++, and/or MATLAB/Simulink), prototype-level electronics. Solidworks, Solidworks/Motion, or other CAD experience not required, but a plus. Familiarity with shop tools and hand tools a plus. Instrumentation and data acquisition experience a plus.
Mechanical Engineer Internship
* JOB DESCRIPTION
Design and build mechanical parts for a novel electromechanical robotic system being developed for space applications of satellite servicing and removal of orbital debris.
Assist in developing system requirements for a second electromechanical robotic system that will be used to support non-cooperative rendezvous and docking for deliveries to space facilities. Support other engineering efforts at Altius as opportunities arise.
* QUALIFICATIONS
Minimum requrements:
- Significant experience with at least one CAD program
- Experience fabricating parts with machine shop equipment (mills, lathes, general rapid prototyping, CNC controlled machines)
- Extracurricular mechanical design
- General mechanical aptitude
- Understanding of the design processes (proper concept generation and selection based on mechanism requirements)
- Good teamwork, interpersonal and communication skills
Additional Desired Skills/Experience:
SolidWorks experience is strongly preferred; kinematic analysis; experience with SolidWorks/Motion. Programming (C, C++, and/or MATLAB/Simulink), prototype-level electronics, or robotic force control experience would each be a plus.
For all three Altius summer internships: U.S. citizenship or U.S. permanent residency required.
Send cover email to resumes@altius-space.com describing the unique way your qualifications and interests match this position.
Sorry for the long dry-spell for blog updates. Here’s the presentation I gave at the Space Access 2012 conference, with the notes attached (since most of the slides don’t have much text on them):
Last week, Alvin Remmers of Moonandback.com posted a new interview we did last year at the SEDS conference in Boulder. Now that both segments have been published, Alvin gave me permission again, to embed them here for future reference (these interviews first appeared on Moonandback.com, © Moonandback Media LLC, All Rights Reserved):
Part 1:
Interview with Jon Goff, Part 1 – The Sticky Boom from Moonandback Media on Vimeo.
In this part I give some updates on Stick Boom development up through October.
Part 2:
Interview with Jon Goff, Part 2 – Direct to Station from Moonandback Media on Vimeo.
In this part, I discuss our Direct to Station™ concept for enabling space station deliveries without dedicated prox-ops vehicles, discuss its potential to revolutionize how space facility-based research is done, and also introduce the idea of using a D2S™-like setup on Dragon Lab. I’ll give more info on that soon, as time permits.
Thanks again to Alvin and his camera team!
Altius Space Machines and Sticky Boom™ have been getting some pretty amazingly good coverage in the media over the past several days, mostly thanks articles in Aviation Week by Frank Morring Jr. and by Jeff Foust in MIT’s Technology Review last Monday and Tuesday. Here’s a short list of the articles we’ve had since last Monday:
- Frank Morring Jr’s article in Aviation Week: Space Startups are Have a Head of Steam (we’re on page 3).
- Jeff Foust’s article in MIT’s Technology Review: A Sticky Solution for Grabbing Objects in Space.
- Andrew Tarantola’s article in Gizmodo: The Sticky Boom Clings With the Power of Static.
- Rebecca Boyle’s article in Popular Science: New Robot Arm Uses Static Cling to Grab Objects in Zero-G, From Satellites to Space Junk.
- Jennifer Ouellette’s article in Discovery News: Robotic ‘Sticky Boom’ Lets You Grab Stuff In Space.
- And a brief news article in Investor’s Business Daily: Future Spaceships Could
I just wanted to thank all involved in writing these articles for the excellent press, and wanted to thank the Altius team (AJ, Mike, Forrest, Bill, Kirk, Mark, and others) and our other space-industry collaborators on Sticky Boom™ for all the hard work over the past few months. Stay tuned for some updates on our progress over the past few months.
