Success Stories

NASA's 3-D Design Center Enables Space Exploration

Client:

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Challenge:

Bridge the gap between virtual spacecraft and instrument design and physical hardware.
Provide an environment that fosters innovation and collaboration between different disciplines at JPL and offsite.
Enhance the use and visualization of mechanical data.

Solution:

Improve systems engineering.
Create a robust visualization capability.
Integrate systems.

Results:

Intuitive, visual, tactile, integrated technology that stimulated, rather than impeded innovation and collaboration.
Increased ability to focus on and solve design challenges.
Enhanced capability to visualize increasingly larger and more complex designs and data.

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For spacecraft engineers, perfection and innovation are everyday fare. To enable engineers to better innovate and collaborate as they design new spacecraft and the instruments they carry, CSC helped NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) build a unique Mechanical Design Center that integrates visualization, three-dimensional modeling, data management and communications technologies.

JPL, a pioneer in pushing the boundaries of space exploration, currently has 23 spacecraft and 10 instruments investigating the universe. To design them, JPL’s mechanical engineers used to meet in traditional conference rooms or cluster around an individual’s workstation. Faced with increasingly complex missions, each generating greater quantities of data, the laboratory decided to build a Mechanical Design Center to promote collaboration and innovation.

“The nature of JPL's mission requires engineers to routinely create innovative solutions to problems that have never been seen before,” says Mike Gross, CSC program director, JPL Institutional Services and Support. “That innovation also must be tempered with risk reduction and a focus on increasing the probability of mission success.”

Consider the spacecraft carrying NASA’s most recent Mars Science Laboratory and the car-sized rover, Curiosity, that will explore the red planet’s Gale Crater. Currently speeding toward Mars at about 60,000 miles per hour, relative to the sun, the spacecraft will fly 352 million miles to reach the planet in August 2012. Even though JPL has sent other spacecraft to Mars, each mission is unique. For example, since Curiosity’s 1,982-pound mass is too great to use airbags, engineers had to design a new way for it to land safely.

Three-dimensional visualization

Since the Earth’s conditions differ from those on other planets and in space, engineers used to evaluate many of their designs by creating two-dimensional views. Because of the benefits visualization offers when evaluating designs, JPL asked CSC to integrate a 3D capability into the center. Today, engineers can see and evaluate designs on a 55-inch touch screen, using their fingers to drill into and manipulate models.

“We used cutting-edge technology based on 3D visualization, which is a fairly new and evolving technology,” says Bob Moodie, CSC IT services manager. “The 32-simultaneous-touch overlay is similar to an iPhone, but with many more capabilities. Engineers can put up a 3D model, enlarge it, spin it around, delve down through different layers, throw parts off and put them on.”

Engineers can also see designs in three dimensions via a 3D projector that CSC integrated with a wall-sized interactive whiteboard system, which also saves their changes. Improving collaboration between engineers and scientists at JPL and around the world was another key goal. CSC linked these 3D capabilities and high-definition video to the Internet to connect teams worldwide in a low-cost, effective way.

A variety of other components, including cameras, a consolidated mic-speaker system and USB interfaces for devices such as memory sticks and keyboards were integrated into the room by CSC, as well as three computer systems to manage and crunch large amounts of engineering data.

“Some of the manufacturers said we couldn’t integrate their technologies or use them in the way JPL wanted to use them,” says Steve Kara, CSC senior product integration specialist. “We had to come up with a way that would solve those issues.”

Technology boosts innovation

As JPL continues to explore the universe, the laboratory continues to seek technology solutions that will help engineers and scientists innovate. For the Mechanical Design Center, CSC helped ensure that the technology we integrated is intuitive, visual and tactile so engineers can focus on design challenges, instead of technology issues.

“Our clients universally expect us to bring innovative ideas to improve their business,” says Gross. “A huge benefit of working with CSC is that we can solve very difficult problems, and we’re very versatile in doing that.

“We have a very talented, unique team of engineers supporting JPL,” he adds. “Some of the smartest people in the world work at JPL and that keeps us on our toes because we have to engage them with our best and brightest.”

Download this Success Story (PDF).