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Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers CELEBRATES 50th Anniversary of Historic Lunar Landing: IEEE Galveston Bay Section Hosts NASA/JSC with Two Region 5 Stepping Stone Awards at NASA/JSC Gilruth Center July 27th, 2019, 1:00-2:30 PM

REGION 5 STEPPING STONE AWARDS in ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTING SATURDAY, JULY 27th, 2019 GILRUTH CENTER, NASA/

REGION 5 STEPPING STONE AWARD

PROGRAM OF EVENTS SATURDAY, JULY 27th, 2019 GILRUTH CENTER, DESTINY BALLROOM NASA/JOHNSON SPACE CENTER 1:00-2:30 PM • Welcome Zafar Taqvi Retired NASA Contractor (1969-2010) IEEE Region 5 History Chair • Region 5 Stepping Stone Award Robert Shapiro IEEE Region 5 Director • IEEE- Advancing Technology for Humanity James Jefferies 2018 IEEE CEO and President • Analytic Ephemeris Generator (AEG) Presentations o A Peak at the AEG early developments Ken Young Retired NASA (1962-2011) o How AEG has been utilized to support space program Merritt Jones Retired NASA Contractor (1963-1995) • Electronic Systems Test Lab (ESTL) Presentations o ESTL Early Developments: A response to the need for a robust verification of communication and tracking advanced space system requirements. Sharon S. Marston Electronic Systems Test Laboratory Manager, NASA/JSC o Role ESTL played in the decades long successes of our space program Bruce A. Manners Chief, Avionics Systems Division, NASA/JSC • Presentation of Plaques by James Jefferies/IEEE to JSC Director and AEG and ESTL Groups JSC Director’s Remarks Mark S. Geyer NASA/JSC Director • Concluding Remarks and Thanks to Guests

EVENT PRESENTERS

NASA/ JSC Director Mark S. Geyer

JSC Director Mark S. Geyer Mark S. Geyer is the 12th director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, a position he assumed on May 25, 2018. In this role, Geyer leads a workforce of approximately 10,000 civil servant and contractor employees at one of NASA’s largest installations in Houston and the White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Geyer began his NASA career in 1990 at NASA Johnson in the new business directorate. He joined the International Space Station Program in 1994, where he served a variety of roles until 2005, including chair of the space station Mission Management Team, manager of the ISS Program Integration Office and NASA lead negotiator with Russia on space station requirements, plans and strategies. From 2005 to 2007, Geyer served as deputy program manager of the , before transitioning to manager of the Program, a position he held until 2015. Under Geyer’s direction, Orion was successfully tested in space in 2014 for the first time, bringing NASA another step closer to sending to deep space destinations. After supporting Orion, Geyer served as deputy center director at NASA Johnson until September 2017. In this role, he helped the center director manage a broad range of human activities, including the center’s annual budget of approximately $5.1 billion. From October 2017 to May 2018, Geyer served as the acting deputy associate administrator for technical for the Human Explorations and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. In this position, he was responsible for assisting the associate administrator in providing strategic direction for all aspects of NASA’s exploration mission. Born in Indianapolis, Geyer earned both his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Purdue University in Indiana. Geyer is the recipient of the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, Meritorious Executive Rank Award and the Distinguished Executive Rank Award. He is married to Jacqueline Geyer, and they have three children.

2019 IEEE Past President, James A. Jefferies

Jim Jefferies retired from AT&T and Lucent Technologies following 33 years in engineering and executive positions including fiber optic cable development and manufacturing, quality assurance, and supply chain management. He managed the engineering teams that delivered the first commercial fiber optic cables for AT&T. He has also worked in the entrepreneurial sector as Chief Operating Officer for USBuild.com in San Francisco, CA, USA. Jim served two separate terms on the IEEE Board of Directors and was 2015 IEEE-USA President.

2018 IEEE-USA President, Sandra ("Candy") Robinson

Candy Robinson is currently a Software Engineering Manager for in Fort Worth, assigned to the F-35 program. She worked as a hardware design and software engineer for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory, and for the Company. She earned her BSEE degree from UT Austin, MSCS from UC Davis, and an MBA in Engineering and Technology Management from the University of Dallas. She is Immediate Past 2018 IEEE-USA President.

IEEE Region 5 Director, Robert Shapiro

Robert Shapiro is currently the Chief Technology Officer of Intelligent Building Technology in Dallas Texas, providing solutions for in-building communications for First Responders. His career has spanned 35 years in critical infrastructure, public safety and mobile communications. He earned his BSEE from Texas Tech University and an MBA from the University of Dallas. He is currently the IEEE Region 5 Director, a member of the IEEE Audit Committee and the IEEE Technical Activities Assistant Treasurer.

AEG Early Development Presenter, Retired NASA, Ken Young

Ken Young (BS-Aerospace Engr., UT-Austin, 1962) started as a NASA employee in June 1962 at the Manned Spacecraft Center temporary quarters in Houston. Ken worked as a rendezvous analyst and mission planner on from 1963 to 1967, then on Apollo from 1967 to 1972. In those jobs he made extensive use of inhouse rendezvous analysis and planning software tools (powered by the AEG). Ken went on to work every US human spaceflight program from to the International Space Station. He retired as an aerospace consultant in 2011.

AEG Utilization Presenter, Retired NASA Contractor, Merritt Jones

Merritt Jones ( BS-Mathematics, Millsaps College, 1962) started as an IBM employee on the Real Time Control Center contract for NASA in June 1963 in an IBM facility near NASA’s temporary quarters in Houston. He was an astrodynamicist and programmer in the Math Applications department, beginning in the Gemini Program and continuing for all US human through . At the time of the landing, he was the manager of the Mission Planning department, which included the real time rendezvous sequences for both Earth and Lunar orbits. This department was responsible for both the Earth and Lunar AEG’s in the Real Time Computing Center, and was the heaviest user of them. Merritt retired from the human spaceflight program in 1995 and is still active as an Information Technology consultant.

Electronic System Test Laboratory History Presenter, ESTL Manager, NASA/JSC Avionics Systems Division, Sharon L. Marston

Mrs. Sharon Marston received her B. S. Electrical Engineering degree from Virginia Tech in 1987 and began her career at the Naval Facilities Engineering Command in Norfolk, Virginia. She transferred to NASA Johnson Space Center in July 1989 and has spent her NASA career in the Electronic Systems Test Laboratory (ESTL) starting as a Junior Test Director and Project Engineer, serving in progressively more responsible positions including Assistant Laboratory Manager. Mrs. Marston has led major upgrade and test projects in the facility including integration of the Second TDRSS Ground Terminal equipment; design, production, testing, and integration for the ESTL High Rate Optical Communications System connecting ESTL to Mission Control and other Space Shuttle and ISS test facilities; and integration of the Space Shuttle and ISS antenna systems into the newly constructed antenna area early in her career. She served as Test Director for the ISS S-Band and Ku-Band System Verification Tests and for the Second TDRSS Ground Terminal System Verification and Live Sky tests. Mrs. Marston currently serves as the Electronic Systems Test Laboratory Manager.

Electronic System Test Laboratory Utilization Presenter, NASA/JSC Chief Avionics Systems Division, Bruce A. Manners

Mr. Manners began his NASA career at the then NASA Lewis Research Center (now ) in 1988. He joined the Program in 1990 to work on the overall SSF power system architecture, fault protection and grounding system designs. Following the initiation of the International Space Station Program, Mr. Manners continued to provide support to the JSC ISS Program Office from the Glenn Research Center where he led the NASA engineering team for successful hardware qualification & on-orbit activation of the ISS power system. As his career at NASA developed he has served in progressively more responsible positions including Chief of the Analysis & Management Branch, Chief of the Power Systems Analysis Branch, and GRC Liaison to JSC Constellation Program. Transferring to the Johnson Space Center in 2006, he has held positions in the Engineering Directorate and the Commercial Crew & Cargo Program office where he successfully served as the Project Executive for the successful development and demonstration of the Orbital Sciences cargo resupply service to the International Space Station. Rejoining the JSC Engineering Directorate in 2013, Mr. Manners served as the Deputy Chief of the Propulsion and Power Division prior to taking his current position as the Chief of the Avionic Systems Division.

IEEE Region 5 History Committee Chair, Zafar Taqvi Zafar Taqvi is a retired NASA/JSC contractor (1969-2010) who worked from Apollo era to the completion of International Space Station, starting at Building 440 (now Building 44). He contributed to the reconfiguration of the ESTL for shuttle testing, to first integrated testing of avionics at Shuttle Avionics Integration Lab(SAIL) as cognizant engineer, to simulation of the convolution code now being used at Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS), to testing of Wrist group for NASA/Boeing Multi-Purpose Remote Manipulator System, to development of system requirements and testing for International Space Station C&T and finally as a change engineer for ISSS C&T. He is a past chair of IEEE, ISA, and AIAA sections, Life Senior member IEEE, Associate Fellow AIAA, Fellow ISA and holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Houston. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, Phi Kappa Phi, Omicron delta Kappa and Sigma Xi honor societies and has been honored numerous times by IEEE, AIAA, ISA and CLCTS. He currently teaches at the University of Houston-Clear Lake as an adjunct faculty.

ESTL and AEG Personnel attending ESTL AEG John Ross KEN YOUNG Bobby Vermillion MERRITT JONES Dwayne Saunders HAL BECK Linda Bromley BOB REGELBRUGGE Sharon Marston ROGER REINI Bruce Manners BILL SULLIVAN Jack Seyl ELRIC MCHENRY

Kevin Window BILL BRIDGES Don Travis Mel Kapell

Denise Romero

IEEE REGION 5 STEPPING STONE AWARDS

1-Analytic Ephemeris Generator (AEG)

NASA/JSC is recognized for the development of the Analytic Ephemeris Generator (AEG), which provided the rapid planning and real-time orbit predictor for early space programs. Subsequent advancement of the AEG is still used in manned space mission orbit predictions.

Analytic Ephemeris Generator (AEG): Initial AEG development

In the latter part of 1962, during the early development of TQ10 (a NASA computer program for spacecraft trajectory propagation, maneuvers, analyses and documentation), it was recognized that in the computation of rendezvous trajectories, the numerical integration methods for trajectory propagation would be very slow (hours, even days of computer time) and would be extremely expensive in terms of computer resources. An alternative method was urgently required. The work of a well-known Dutch-American astronomer, Dirk Brouwer came to the attention of Alan Moore and Ed Lineberry in the Mission Analysis Branch at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas. Brouwer, a graduate of the University of Leiden, was the Professor of Astronomy at Yale University. Brouwer had formulated the equations for an Analytic Ephemeris Generator (AEG). The Brouwer AEG used an analytic model of the Earth’s gravity field, an analytic model of the Earth’s atmospheric density, and an innovative analytic technique for integrating these force fields in describing the motion of spacecraft. The key to the Brouwer method was in the analytic technique used in the rapid integration of the forces acting on the spacecraft. The advantage of the AEG was that a vehicle state vector could be advanced from its current state to a time in the future (or past) with a single computation pass thru the code. The alternative method for trajectory propagation was a numerical integration technique, such as Runge-Kutta or Enke, that steps the trajectory in small time increments, requiring a complete computation cycle with each step. The AEG made the computations required (and in the case of rendezvous analyses, of two space vehicles simultaneously!) much more rapidly within the capabilities of the computer systems available at the time. The AEG with its analytic modeling of the Earth gravity field, the Earth’s atmospheric density and drag forces coupled with innovative analytic techniques for the integration of those force fields on the motion of spacecraft was a very key addition to the DKI and to Monster, two rendezvous maneuver computer tools created and used by the Mission Analysis Branch for detailed analyses and planning documentation. It was later claimed that the success of Monster was critically dependent upon the successful implementation of the AEG.

Alan Moore was the key developer in the implementation of the Brouwer AEG formulation into TQ10, with inspiration and guidance from Ed Lineberry. Alan had become familiar with the work of Dirk Brouwer, established a relationship and acquired the formulation for implementation. In the early months of 1963 Alan and William (Bill) Reini worked with Lineberry on implementing the AEG into the dedicated rendezvous analysis tool, the Monster. Other Mission Analysis team members worked with Alan and Bill in testing the implementation and providing software documentation.

In September of ’63 Ed Kenyon joined the Mission Analysis team. He started working with Alan and soon took a lead role in the continued development of the AEG. In 1964 Bill Reini and Alan Moore completed checkout of the AEG software and documented the formulation in the form of an MPAD Internal Note -which was transmitted to IBM for implementation in the RTCC. The original AEG was incorporated into the Trajectory Subsystem of the RTCC (Real Time Computer Complex of the new NASA/MSC in Houston, Building 30.) The MCC was in development leading up to the time of manned Gemini missions, which began in the Spring of 1965. For several reasons, RTCC AEG implementation was not without its problems; Howard “Bill” Tindall and William A. Sullivan of the now Mission Planning and Analysis Division were key players in overseeing the IBM implementation and final checkout of the RT AEG software. Also, the Real Time AEG proved essential to the rapid trajectory propagation of the Gemini/Agena spacecraft vectors. The AEG was the primary real-time orbit predictor in the RTCC for Gemini and all subsequent manned missions.

In the latter part of 1965 or early 1966, Alan Moore left NASA to work in industry and Ed Kenyon took on the responsibility for the AEG development. In 1966 and 1967, Kenyon was instrumental in the development of an AEG model for incorporation into a lunar version of Monster. He worked with Dr. Baker of UCLA who had developed an analytic model of the lunar gravity field. Kenyon was supported by Doug Ingram, a TRW contractor worker for MPAD, in the coding of the lunar AEG. Bill Reini incorporated the AEG into the “Lunar Monster” for use in all Apollo rendezvous mission planning and analysis. Kenyan MSC Internal Note 68-FM-119, dated May 21, 1968 highlighted the Apollo Real-Time Rendezvous support program.

The lunar AEG was also implemented in the RTCC. Several years later an updated version of Monster & earth-based AEG was developed for use in Skylab and ASTP planning,

In 1974 Ed Lineberry, while on a one-year sabbatical, developed an even more elegant and more accurate formulation for the AEG. Gus Babb worked with Ed implementing a simplified Jacchia atmosphere model into the AEG. The Lineberry AEG formulation was coded up by Reini and became the MPAD and MCC standard. The improved AEG was later incorporated into the Flight Design System (FDS).

2-Electronic Systems Test Laboratory (ESTL)

NASA/JSC is recognized for the development of Electronic Systems Test Laboratory (ESTL) which supported the complexities of an entirely new communications technique-- a unified voice/data carrier. Subsequent system configurations are currently providing the testing for newer technical advances in communication techniques.

Historical significance of ESTL’s work

The Electronic System Test Laboratory was established to fulfill a need that developed as manned spaceflight communications systems evolved in complexity and required new capability. The combining of all communications functions into one unified communications system for the , instead of the multiple communications systems that were used disparately on and the Gemini Program necessitated the innovation of a brand new combined systems test approach. For the first time, a concept of simultaneously testing spacecraft-to-spacecraft-to-ground communications systems was established as a fundamental portion of communications system development and accurate performance verification. A new communications architecture technique, the combination of all information on one radio frequency carrier, required new ways to assure system compatibility and performance evaluation prior to actual flight use. The success of this new paradigm of simultaneous systems level testing and its legacy carried into today’s methodology has established a precedence of lasting historical significance.

The ESTL capability evolved with enhanced capabilities supporting the myriad of new programs and developmental space communication subsystems throughout the following decades including the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, Skylab, the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, and the Orion Programs, as well as space payload systems and aeronautics communication subsystems. The ESTL also established a new philosophy of testing full systems capability by conducting radio test stress plans beyond the threshold of nominal operations. The characterization of performance up to threshold limits was a new paradigm to accurately capture the parametric robustness of hardware off their nominal conditions. This feature provided flight operations personnel extensive understanding of the communication system capability limits and serves as a valued tool used to manage in- flight operations and anomalies.

Across the ISS program, the ESTL served as a valuable tool to progressively provide early ground testing to mitigate compatibility and functional integrity of Ku, S-Band, and UHF development and upgrade systems. Its unique interfaces to exactly mimic White Sands Complex ground stations and vehicle forward and return links using exact modulation scheme and encryption allowed the highest degree of fidelity to assure mission performance during flight deployments. Today’s newest 600 Msps high rate Integrated Communications Unit was rigorously vetted with an extensive ESTL characterization test program. Today’s new commercial vehicles are undergoing extensive ESTL communications testing to ensure capability with all the NASA communications interfaces.

ESTL Overcomes Issues and Makes Unique Contribution

The obstacles to prove this integrated test facility concept could be successful were significant. Never had this type of test methodology been conducted of this magnitude in the human space program. The risks and potential high consequences were a looming burden for those that made the choice to pursue a nonconventional testing methodology. The experience with this new telecommunication system technique for Apollo- the unified carrier/multiple signal combination capability was essentially non-existent. The fact that each type of spacecraft was manufactured by a different contractor and that the ground communications system was provided by several different sources intensified the need for a combined systems test that could be conducted in an integrated simultaneous real-time manner. Theoretical analysis and early laboratory tests indicated a reasonable chance of success, but this test program was subjected to high investment commitments that had to produce timely results - to prove the feasibility of a new system designed to take humans safely to the for the first time.

NASA’s human spaceflight program is unique. The space communications architecture is unique and the risks and consequences to successfully develop this technology is high consequence. There are no other high fidelity integrated end-to-end human space communications capabilities in the world. The precedence of an early model of a systems engineering approach in Apollo was innovative yet fundamental in its concept, as proven by the ability over the decades to evolve and to scale the initial systems test concept to today’s complex capability to simultaneously test space communications vehicles and ground station configurations. There are no other comparable work achievements that can be considered similar.

IEEE REGION 5 STEPPING STONE AWARD PROGRAM The program honors outstanding achievements that took place in the Southwestern and have made a substantial impact in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). This program is executed by the Region 5 History Committee, Dr Zafar Taqvi, Chair

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