Event
AE Seminar: Andrew Klesh, NASA JPL mission architect
Thursday, March 10, 2016
3:00 p.m.
DeWalt Seminar Room - 2164 Glenn L. Martin Hall
Thomas Hurst
301 405 0190
thurst@umd.edu
Title: MarCO and INSPIRE - Exploring the Solar System with NanoSpacecraft
Abstract:
In March of 2016, the InSight lander was to launch from Vandenberg AirForce Base to begin a 6.5 month cruise to Mars. Now hoping for a 2018 launch, soon after InSight separates from the upper stage of the launch vehicle, the two MarCO CubeSats will deploy and independently fly to Mars to support telecommunications relay for InSight¹s entry, descent, and landing sequence. These spacecraft will have onboard capability for deep space trajectory correction maneuvers; high-speed direct-to-Earth & DSN-compatible communications; an advanced navigation transponder; a large deployable reflect-array high gain antenna; and a robust software suite. This talk will present preliminary information on the MarCO project, including a concept of operations, details of the spacecraft and subsystem design, and a status update. Given the short project lifecycle (project start was in October 2014, with delivery in January 2016), brief lessons learned will be presented based on INSPIRE and MarCO.
MarCO will open the door for NanoSpacecraft to serve in support roles for much larger primary missions ¬ in this case, providing a real-time relay of for the InSight project. It will also be the first CubeSats to reach deep space, building upon the lessons learned from the INSPIRE spacecraft development. At only a 6U in size, these spacecraft well illustrate the tremendous capability now available in a small package.
We are now ready for CubeSats to reach Mars.
Bio: Dr. Andrew Klesh is a mission architect at NASA¹s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the Planetary Mission Concept group. His current research focuses on deep space nanospacecraft science and implementation, and he is the PI on the INSPIRE deep space CubeSats, and Chief Engineer of MarCO, the first nanospacecraft headed to Mars. He also supports robotic and scientific research in the Arctic, including a novel buoyant rover which explores underneath lake and sea ice. Before starting at JPL, Andrew served as a postdoctoral fellow at JAXA as a member of the Hayabusa Astrodynamics team, and an IKAROS mission team member. Prior to JAXA, Andrew was postdoctoral fellow and chief engineer of the University of Michigan's Radio Aurora Explorer CubeSat project. Dr. Klesh received his PhD in aerospace engineering, Masters degrees in space systems & aerospace engineering, and Bachelors degrees in aerospace & electrical engineering, all from the University of Michigan
