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.
[Note: this is a blog post version of a whitepaper we recently sent out describing the technical idea that is at the heart of the Altius business plan I pitched at the 2011 NewSpace Business Plan Competition.]
Problem Introduction
A key missing capability that is needed to enable commercially competitive research and development on space stations like the ISS is the ability to send and receive short lead-time just-in-time packages. The current long lead-times for space station deliveries make it challenging for station researchers and manufacturers to compete commercially with terrestrial counterparts. While many companies are currently developing small rockets capable of lifting payloads of the right size class to low-earth orbit (LEO), this does not serve the critical space station user need for just-in-time deliveries because these vehicles lack the capabilities needed to safely approach the station by themselves. Specialized delivery vehicles like Progress or ATV possess the capabilities needed to safely approach the station, but they cannot be affordably scaled down to the size that these small rockets can lift while leaving any useful payload. Altius Space Machines is developing a solution for this missing capability called the Direct to Station (D2S™) delivery system, which will enable small launch vehicles to safely deliver just-in-time cargo directly to the ISS, without the need for separate, proximity-operations-capable delivery vehicles.
D2S Technical Description
The Altius D2S delivery solution has two principal subsystems: a station-based guidance and control system, and an extremely-long, station-based Sticky Boom™ capture mechanism. Sticky Boom uses a compliant electroadhesive gripper that can adapt itself to the geometry of any space object and then adhere to its surface, regardless of surface material, using controlled electrostatic forces. This gripper is mounted on the end of an extremely long deployable and steerable articulated boom, which is capable of matching speeds with visiting objects over a much wider range of relative velocities than traditional robotic arms.
As shown below, (1) as a rocket upper stage approaches the station exclusion area, (2) the D2S guidance and control system tracks and performs relative navigation for the incoming rocket stage, and then (3) sends the stage thruster commands enabling the stage to use its own propulsion systems to approach close enough for (4) the D2S Sticky Boom to capture it and reel the payload in to the station. By offloading the fine-control positioning to the electromechanically articulated boom, the coarse-control capabilities of the rocket upper stage become adequate for its portion of the task.
Illustration of D2S Concept of Operations
Additional Applications of D2S
Large-Scale Direct to Station Deliveries: D2S can also be scaled-up to handle deliveries from EELV-class launch vehicles such as Atlas V, Delta IV, or Falcon 9. With the Space Shuttle now retired, D2S can reinstate the capability of delivering large replacement parts or expansion modules using existing launch vehicles without requiring the development of space tugs or the installation of expensive proximity-operations upgrades to the EELV upper stages.
Propellant Depot Resupply: The same techniques can also be used to simplify the delivery of propellant in simple, passive containers to future propellant depots, or enable the integration of large space exploration vehicles in LEO before departure to deep-space destinations.
Nanosat/Microsat Launch Anchor Market: By enabling steady demand for space station deliveries by nano- and micro-scale launch vehicles, D2S can provide an anchor market for these launch systems. This market is potentially bigger than the current small satellite launch market increasing the potential for several healthy launch providers in this payload class.
Vehicle Return Assist: The D2S hardware can also simplify the departure of sample return vehicles. By releasing the return vehicle far below the station, with a slight amount of backward velocity, the vehicle enters a trajectory that will never re-intersect with ISS. This can greatly reduce or eliminate proximity-operation requirements for such vehicles.
D2S Departure Assistance Illustration
Next Steps
- Develop relationships with relevant NASA groups to promote understanding of D2S.
- Work with ISS Visiting Vehicles Group to determine the best way to implement D2S to ensure safety while minimizing the overhead placed on visiting nanosat and EELV upper stages.
- Work with station researchers and manufacturers to better understand their logistics needs
- Interface with Nanosat Launch Vehicle developers to ensure their vehicles are designed from the outset to be D2S compatible.
- Work with partner companies to analyze flight dynamics, and determine Sticky Boom system design requirements.
- Develop Sticky Boom hardware including an arbitrary-geometry-capable gripper and an extremely long-reaching storable articulated boom crane system based on NASA technology.
- Space qualify and flight test the D2S system including abort operations
- Develop standard procedures for qualifying new upper stages for D2S delivery
- Work with ISS National Lab to remove any other obstacles to short lead-time deliveries.
Here’s the pitch. My part starts around 7:45 and goes through around the 23min mark.
As many of you have seen elsewhere on Twitter, Hobbyspace, and Parabolic Arc, Altius Space Machines won the $25,000 first-place prize at the 2011 Heinlein NewSpace Business Plan Competition this past weekend out in Silicon Valley. I was going to wait for the formal press release to be ready, or at least a link to the video of my pitch, but since both of those are taking a while I wanted to give some informal thoughts about the business plan competition first.
Business Plan Development Sprint
Someone asked me a few months ago what we’d do for our next sprint, now that we had flown the Zero-G experiment. Based on some thoughts I had reading our now-Acting-CTO’s book “The Inventor’s Puzzle“, and from watching Jeff Greason’s ISDC talk, I realized we had reached the point where we needed to clarify Altus’s business strategy. Our Sticky Boom™ technology was cool, and could be used to solve a lot of customer problems, but I didn’t have an elevator pitch where I could quickly and clearly communicate what Altius was trying to achieve as a business. So, we decided to do the sprint, pulled together a team of five of us (me, Bill Bolton our now VP of Marketing and Sales, Colin from the Space Business Blog, and Thomas Card and Dewayne Davenport from The DC Group), and tossed our hat into the ring.
Our goals in this sprint were first off, to put together a business plan good enough to make it to the finals, second off to learn as much as we could from the bootcamp, third to pitch our business in front of seasoned investors and get their feedback and questions, and fourth, yeah we’ll admit that the money was sort of tempting as well.
It took us a lot of hard work and iteration to finally close-in on a solid story that clearly identified who the customer was (which in this case is not the same as the end user), what they needed, what specifically would they pay us for and how much, why us, who our competitors were, what is our competitive advantage and how will we protect it, how big of a pot of gold were we talking about at the end of the rainbow, how we were going to get there, how we were going to make sure our customers knew we existed and then convince them that they really want to buy from us, what our exit strategy was, what sort of ROI could an investor expect, and what were the big risks we had identified and how did we plan to mitigate or deal with those risks. While any business plan is a work in progress that will likely change drastically over the course of execution, I’m pretty darned happy what my team came up with. The elevator pitch I gave at the start of my pitch last Friday went something like:
“Altius is developing a solution that enables nanosat launch vehicles to deliver small, just-in-time packages directly to the station. Not only does this open a huge new market for nanosat launch developers, but it also enables us to achieve $20-70M in annual commercial revenue once scaled-up to full commercial operations, and more importantly enable us to change the way space deliveries are made forever.”
I’m very happy with how this business plan sprint went. Not just because of winning the prize, but also because we now have a much clearer story of what we’re trying to accomplish, we’ve had a chance to publicly present that story, and we now have a much clearer internal vision of where we need to be focusing our efforts.
Some Credit Where Credit is Due
In addition to Bill, Colin, Tom, and DeWayne, and all the people at the Space Frontier Foundation who put on the competition, I’d like to call out a few people specifically for credit.
First, I’d like to thank the people who ran the Business Plan Competition and the bootcamp (Tom Olson, Joel Vinas, Liz, Amaresh, Dr Livingston, Shubber Ali, Bob Werb, etc), especially Shubber. Far more valuable than prizes or recognition is solid feedback and criticism, and Shubber’s insights really helped us hone in on our message. I’d rather have someone shoot holes in my plan in person than to get up in front of a potential investor and look like a doofus. I’m particularly grateful to Shubber because he came out to help even though he was in the middle of a cross-country move.
Second, I’d like to thank the judges: Hoyt Davidson of Near Earth LLC, Amaresh Kollipara of Earth2Orbit LLC, Steven Goldberg of Venrock, Xander Mahony of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and the lady from Excalibur Almaz that subbed in for Art Dula (sorry I didn’t catch her name in the blur that morning). One of the reasons we did this sprint was to get the feedback and questions that experienced investors bring to the table, and the judges didn’t disappoint at all on that account.
Third, I’d like to thank our acting CTO, Mark Lake, and my fellow “Vaultians” Eric Cecil, Steve Campbell, Dewayne Nesmith, for all the feedback, suggestions, and letting me practice my pitch dozens of times over the days leading up to the finals.
Lastly, I want to thank those who are “to blame” for this whole effort–Jeff Greason for getting me to start thinking about what our goals and strategy are, and getting me to realize that solving the space delivery problem was a goal worthy of me focusing my next half a decade on, Josh Hopkins (of Lockheed Martin’s “Plymouth Rock” fame) for writing the Space Review article that led to me inventing Sticky Boom and our Direct to Station delivery idea, Mike Loucks (a flight dynamics officer for LADEE, IBEX, and several other spacecraft missions) for talking me through how Sticky Boom could work with space stations prox ops, Ian Garcia (now with Moon Express) and Dr David Geller of Utah State for fleshing out the idea enough to make it practical, and Joe Carroll, for cluing me in several years ago about the importance of just-in-time deliveries to (and from) station to space station end users.
More updates to come when the press releases and pitch videos are ready, and I’ll also be posting more details over the coming months about our Direct to Station (D2S) delivery solution, and why it matters to nanosat launch providers, space station operations, and space station end users.
[Update 8/5/11: Here's our formal press release on PRNewswire:
Altius Space Machines Wins NewSpace Business Plan Competition
LOUISVILLE, Colo., Aug. 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- On July 30th, Altius Space Machines won the $25,000 grand prize in the 2011 Heinlein NewSpace Business Plan Competition, hosted by the Space Frontier Foundation. Altius' winning business plan focused on their "Direct to Station" space station delivery solution.
Jonathan Goff, Altius CEO, stated: "We are thrilled that our hard work for this competition paid off, and we are grateful to have had the opportunity to publicly present our space station delivery solution." Direct to Station enables developers of very small satellite ("nanosat") launch vehicles to provide just-in-time, small-package deliveries to the International Space Station.
"This solution opens up a large new market for nanosat launch providers, who were previously unable to access the ISS because legacy space station delivery systems do not scale down well to nanosat size. Our solution also enables the space station to function more competitively as a world-class research facility," said Goff. "Ultimately, Direct to Station will change the way space station deliveries are done forever."
A key part of the Direct to Station delivery concept is the Sticky Boom™ docking technology being developed by Altius and SRI International. Sticky Boom™, which incorporates SRI's patented electroadhesion technology at the end of a long deployable boom, can stick to any surface in space, from spacecraft to asteroids. In addition to simplifying space station deliveries, this technology can aid satellite servicing, robotic asteroid missions and space junk disposal.
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 SRI International
Silicon Valley-based SRI International, a nonprofit research and development organization, performs sponsored R&D for governments, businesses, and foundations. SRI brings its innovations to the marketplace through technology licensing, new products, and spin-off ventures. Commemorating its 65th anniversary in 2011, SRI is known for world-changing innovations in computing, health and pharmaceuticals, chemistry and materials, sensing, energy, education, national defense, and more. For more information visit www.sri.com
Press Contacts
Sara Meschberger
Altius Space Machines
623-271-2045
smeschberger@altius-space.com
Dina Basin
SRI International
650-859-3845
press@sri.com
SOURCE Altius Space Machines, Inc. ]
I found out today that Altius Space Machines was selected as one of the five finalists for the 2011 NewSpace Business Plan Competition. We’re really looking forward to the competition, and also meeting the other competing teams and seeing what we can learn from them and from the feedback we get from the judges.
I hadn’t originally been planning on competing this year, but Jeff Greason’s ISDC talk got me thinking about what exactly my goals and strategy were for Altius, and I realized that we had finally reached a point with Sticky Boom™ that I could start wrapping a solid business plan around our company’s commercialization strategy. With the help of Colin Doughan of the Space Business Blog (who’s been a good friend for many years and one of the business advisors/mentors for Altius), we were able to pull together a pretty cool team to help us put together our first formal business plan. We’ve got a story that’s been becoming more and more exciting to me personally as we’ve started getting more details of our strategy worked out, and writing the executive summary really brought home to me what an amazing opportunity we have on our hands with Sticky Boom™ if we can execute on it properly.
Anyhow, just wanted to give everyone an update. If time permits, I intend to start discussing some elements of the business plan on this blog over the coming weeks. I may also do some introductions to the guys helping make this possible.
We’re over visiting with a friend (Colin Doughan of the Space Business Blog fame) on the way down to LA, and decided to use his internet connection to upload our highlights video from the flight yesterday:
[Update 5/25/11: We realized after the flight that we hadn't gotten waivers to show the faces of the other passengers on the plane, so we had Brandon Seifert help us blur their faces, put in credits at the front, and the back of the film. The film shows the same parabolas, but the faces were blurred to protect the privacy of the other people on the plane. The old video is being pulled. If you've linked to this video, the above link will take you to the new video.]
The connection is too slow from where I’m staying tonight to get the highlight footage up on youtube tonight, but I’ll have it up tomorrow or Monday at the latest. But the good news is that the flight went well, the hardware all worked correctly, and we were able to get full or partial captures on four of the zero-g parabolas. I’ll do a more extensive writeup/debrief when I get back into town Tuesday night, but I just wanted to let people know that we made our “impossible” goal, and successfully flew the Sticky Boom demonstration experiment on a Zero-G airplane less than a month after we formally launched the project.
Special thanks to:
- The many great people at ZeroG for bending over backwards to help us have an excellent flight experience. Especially our coach, Steve, and our videographer, Bryan Rapoza, and for Michelle who helped set everything up for us.
- The many other passengers on our flight who put-up with us doing a flight experiment on what was supposed to be an entertainment flight.
- Steve Traugott and Forrest Ryan for staying up till 4am this morning getting the backup cable wired in and routed. We found issues with the bonded-in ribbon cable on Friday, and Forrest agreed to fly out to Santa Clara with us to help fix the problem. After pulling an almost all-nighter getting our experiment ready to fly, both Steve and Forrest (who were our alternates/backups in case either Mike or I were somehow unable to do the flight today) were up again at 6:30 this morning helping us get setup. Many thanks to Steve’s wife, Joyce, for putting up with us borrowing Steve like that.
- Kirk, AJ, and Mike for all the work they put into getting the sticky boom demonstrator designed, assembled, fabbed, and ready to go on such short notice.
- Brian Bernhard for helping us get unstuck from several electronics problems along the way.
- Ben Brockert for giving us some good pointers on cameras to use for the flight.
- Mark Lake for giving us pointers on local machine shops we could use to get last minute prototypes built.
- Wayne Nosala in Mojave, Dennis Simplot in Erie, CO, and St Vrain’s Manufacturing in Longmont for turning us around machined parts in ridiculously short periods of time.
- Ron, Harsha, Philip, John, and all the others at SRI International for their electroadhesion design, fabrication, and integration help.
- Deb, Liz, and our other fellow Vault denizens for letting us take over the whole building practically for several days as we geared up for the test program, and for putting up with our mess.
- Our investors for having the faith to put up the money that enabled this project.
- And last but not least, my wife (and Mike’s wife as well) for supporting us on this Sprint even though it’s taken us away from family a lot more this past month than either of us would’ve liked.
I’ll update this once the youtube is up and loaded, and may give more of a debrief next week. I probably will go back to slightly less frequent blog posts in the future, but I thank everyone who has been following us during this sprint.
