A conversation with Leighton Quon, project manager in the Airspace Technology Division at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.
Transcript
Host (Matthew Buffington): Welcome to NASA in Silicon Valley episode 61. For the last few episodes we have been asking for input on our fancy new phone line, so we have our first caller Raj, who dialed (650) 604-1400, just like you can, and left this question.
Caller:Hi, my name is Raj Arangi, I’m calling from Seattle regarding, just following with interest, the podcast on the Cassini Grand Finale. I have one question, with the current state of the technology, if there is a future mission like Cassini to the outer planets, are we in a position to design in such a way that the energy source never runs out, for example, the solar energy, will that be possible, that you can design an orbiter that will just keep going forever, and given the longevity of the Voyager probes, is there something like that on the cards so we don’t really lose such a wonderful instrument which is still functioning otherwise?
Host:Joining us for this special intro is Chad Frost, the Deputy Director for Engineering here at NASA Ames. So Chad, tell us what you think, would it make more sense to use solar power for stuff like Cassini?
Chad Frost:Hey Matt, well Raj asked a really great question. And, it’s not just about can you use solar power. Really his question was, how do you keep a mission going indefinitely? And could power from the Sun be the solution to doing that? And that’s a great question, and the kinds of questions we have to think about all the time when planning NASA missions.
And really when we’re planning a mission out into deep space, one real considerations is actually the ongoing cost to operate the spacecraft over the lifetime of the mission. So a spacecraft that can function and collect science data for a really long time can be just incredibly valuable – and Voyager 1 & Voyager 2 are great examples, they’ve been out there for 40 years this month, in regular communication with NASA – but that does cost something, for the people and facilities to make all that happen. There’s also a cost associated with building a spacecraft that lasts in the heat, the cold, and the radiation of the space environment; and it takes quite a bit more to engineer and build a system that is so reliable. So typically we’ll design a spacecraft to perform a particular mission, get the science we want, and then wrap up. Cassini is one example; the LADEE mission is another, there’s lots. When the mission is over, it’s over, and that means the meter doesn’t keep ticking. Sometimes an open end mission is the right thing to do, and the Voyager missions are great examples, but there is a cost associated with doing that.
So one of the challenges for missions to the outer planets is that the power available from the Sun decreases with the square of the distance. So the farther out we go, the less power we have to work with.
Host:It gets weaker and weaker.
Chad Frost:NASA’s Juno spacecraft, for example, would generate 14 kW of electricity if it were in Earth orbit, right, but by the time it gets to Jupiter it can only produce 400 W – about the same a blender! Not very much.
Host:A very expensive blender!
Chad Frost:So, additionally, not only is the energy available from the sun going down really fast as you get further out, the solar cell efficiency degrades over time that it’s exposed to the space environment, and it takes several years to get out that far. So the amount of electricity that you can generate from your solar cells is going down too.
So what this means is, you know, as you go out past about the orbit of Jupiter, you either need truly huge solar arrays – which, with today’s technology, we just can’t yet get them up into space, but we’re working on it – or we need some other source of power. Fortunately, we have what’s called an RTG – a Radioisotope Thermal Generator, which produce electricity from the heat generated by radioactive materials.
Host:Oh wow!
Chad Frost:These work great, we’ve been using them since the 1960’s and ever since, but they’re really heavy and very expensive, and even those eventually stop making enough power to be useful. That takes decades, but still, eventually, you run out.
Host:Yeah, there is an end point.
Chad Frost:Yeah, so, the other limiting factor on the life of a spacecraft is its supply of propellant, Spacecraft need propellant to perform maneuvers. And once all that propellant is expended, the spacecraft can’t point, can’t change its trajectory. Even electric propulsion systems, which are very efficient, and we use a lot now because of their efficiency, they require some form of propellant. When it’s used up, the mission’s effectively over, because the spacecraft can’t point back to Earth to do its communications, for example. Even if the rest of the spacecraft’s systems are working just fine, once the propellant is gone, that’s kinda it. So, you know, these are all great challenges, they’re things we need to work through for any deep space mission. And I think the key answer to Raj’s question is, if we could have them last forever, we would. It costs something to do that, and it’s a really hard technology problem. So if the science warrants it, NASA will go for it. A lot of times, you want to just go out, get…
Host:Get what you need.
Chad Frost:Get the key science, and be done with it.
Host:Excellent, well thanks for coming on over, Chad. I’m sure this isn’t going to be the last that we hear from Chad Frost.
Chad Frost:My pleasure, Matt, any time.
Host:But also a reminder to folks listening to keep calling in and who knows, maybe we’ll end up doing a full episode just for calls and input and feedback and answers and stuff.
But for this episode, we are joined by Leighton Quon. He is a project manager in the Airspace Technology Division at NASA Ames. We talk a lot about his research and work on the nation’s air traffic management systems. And I think we can all relate to sitting on long flights and annoying layovers, but Leighton’s work is targeted at making air traffic system safer, faster, and more efficient. So let’s jump right into our conversation with Leighton Quon.
[Music]
Host:How did you join NASA? How did you end up in Silicon Valley?
Leighton Quon:Well, I’ll go in the reverse order.
Host:Nice.
Leighton Quon:Born and raised in the area. So I’m a local. Spent all but a couple years of my life in the area, including school. So I am a local, and that’s why I’m here. I came to NASA — so my degrees are in engineering. I had been working in the Silicon Valley area for a number of years in the industry. In fact, half of my career is still on the industry side before I eventually came to civil service.
But I was working in areas that NASA here at Ames Research Center had a need for. At that point in my career, it was largely modeling and simulation. Simulations of aircraft and those types of things. Also air transportation types of simulations. So had been working in that area in industry. And eventually there was an opportunity —
Host:To kind of bring it over.
Leighton Quon:Yeah. To come over to civil service and continue doing similar work but at a higher level. So kind of as a career move it just made sense at that time.
Host:Cool. I imagine especially growing up in this area, driving [Highway] 101 you see these big hangars and kind of wondered like, “What’s going on back over there behind that fence?”
Leighton Quon:Yep, yep. In fact, I remember driving up and down [Highway] 101 when the cities of San Jose and San Francisco and the suburbs did not touch each other. There would be open space —
Host:Oh, wow.
Leighton Quon:— before you would get to the next suburb.
Host:A lot of orchards and —
Leighton Quon:Yeah, and just open space. [Highway] 101 north–and southbound–was only three lanes at that time. As you went by this area, you could see the big hangar was very prominent.
Host:Having worked in the industry for a while, you know that NASA is a thing. You know the work they’re doing in aeronautics. So did you just see a job? Or did someone come and approach you and say, “Hey, this would be a good fit”? How did that work out?
Leighton Quon:I was in industry not even related to NASA or Bourke, Ames Research [Center]. It was some defense and some other government work. Eventually I did begin doing work that was supported and done by NASA. But I was not yet working for NASA as a civil servant. Then as time went on, there were opportunities that were well-aligned with what I was doing and kind of where I wanted to go with my career.
So there was an opportunity that I took advantage of. That was when I transitioned to civil service.
Host:When you came on board, what were you working on?
Leighton Quon:I came on board to become the deputy project manager for the Virtual Airspace Modeling and Simulation project, VAMS.
Host:Quite a mouthful. So what exactly does that do?
Leighton Quon:That project focused on–It was actually a fairly descriptive title. Airspace, as in the air traffic management and air traffic that we have in this country– modeling and simulation. So developing modeling of that, developing simulation and simulation tools to better understand and analyze the system–the air transportation system–and to propose and look into future concepts of operation to make their transportation more efficient and utilize more technology than it currently had.
Host:It’s one of those funny things. When people typically think of NASA, they think of astronauts and launching rockets. Leaving out that that’s a core part of the acronym “NASA,” aeronautics being a huge part of that, but also when you think of air traffic controllers, I think people, the first place their minds go is to the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration]. And a lot of the work that NASA is doing is a lot of that research that helps those air traffic control systems and working in sync with the FAA —
Leighton Quon:That’s correct.
Host:So talk a bit about that.
Leighton Quon:At the stage and the relationship we’re at with the FAA — first of all, yes, the first “A” in “NASA” is “aeronautics.” National Aeronautics and Space Administration. So we’re very happy and proud about that. So I’m glad you had a chance to allude to that. Right now our current relationship with the FAA is actually quite strong. It’s probably stronger than it’s ever been.
It’s related to the air traffic management and the research there. In broad statements, the FAA is responsible for the implementation and safe operation of the air traffic management, air transportation system. We’re helping out, being a government research agency, by doing some of the early research and development for future air traffic management systems of all sorts.
Some of them are things for the FAA and the air traffic controller systems and the things they rely on. Some of them may be on board flight decks and aircraft for operational efficiency things. There’s additional research related to just aviation safety in general and technologies that can be applied there, both on the ground as well as in the air onboard individual aircraft.
So it’s quite a broad portfolio of work. In addition to that, a lot of the traditional work that we’ve always done is still there with respect to aerodynamics–aerodynamics of design of wings, of aircraft bodies, aircraft shapes, efficiency issues with moving something through the air as well as future airplane designs. Those are all still part of NASA’s aeronautics portfolio.
Host:Also one thing that comes to mind of having these conversations with different people in different parts of NASA Ames, the folks working in like supercomputing and stuff, I’d imagine that not every government agency has a supercomputer on hand.
Leighton Quon:That’s true.
Host:Do you guys work with that on some of this research? You talked about modeling and simulations. Does that play into it a little bit?
Leighton Quon:Only a little bit. Sometimes we have computations that are very, very demanding, that kind of go beyond the ability or scope of standard computing class hardware. So we have, and we do. We have used the supercomputing facilities here for various analyses. That kind of comes and goes depending on what we’re studying, depending on what the need is.
As far as the operational studies, through the ages, through the years — in fact that first project that got me to come to civil service was about building, modeling, and simulation capabilities that could support the research we envisioned in the future. Now, that was in 2003.
Host:So we are in the future now.
Leighton Quon:We are. And I will say I’m happy and pleased to say we’re actually leveraging in my current project a lot of the groundwork that we did back in the early 2000s related to modeling and simulation. So it’s proving valuable to us what we did before in our current research. And I know we–the aeronautics research here–continue to look at better and future ways to do simulations. That’s another project.
Host:Build on that. So what were you working on before. How did that help pave the way for the stuff that you’re doing now? Is it just focused mainly on how to do research, how to do simulations?
Leighton Quon:So if you’re referring to the earlier project I mentioned —
Host:Yeah.
Leighton Quon:— it was actually a lot of the precursor work to what we’re doing now. In that project we had three areas of focus. One was actually modeling and simulation. What types of tools did we need to support the research we anticipate for the future?
Host:Kind of “future-proofing” it a bit.
Leighton Quon:Right. One was “System Level Integrated Concept”. So that was more about our transportation system in itself and how certain concepts–new concepts could be looked at, entertained, developed and then presumably tested in our simulation facilities. And then ways to evaluate those new concepts. So we had an evaluation focus in there. So the modeling and simulation tools and support, the new concepts to try within that facility or those facilities, and then ways to evaluate kind of the goodness of those future concepts.
Host:On the stuff that you guys were studying, how did those questions come about? Is it stuff that researchers at NASA come up with? Or is this FAA saying, “Hey, here’s a problem that we’re having,” or is it private industry? What drives the questions that you end up looking at and researching?
Leighton Quon:It’s actually all of those. The things that we look at, if you look at the entirety of the portfolio, even beyond what I have within aeronautics, you could find examples of all of those things. In my portfolio, which is now the Airspace Technology Demonstrations project, or ATD project, a lot of what we work on is maturing the foundational research that some of our researchers worked on 5 and 10 years ago.
Now it’s kind of coming to fruition and ready to be evaluated and tried in the field. So in my portfolio, a lot of times we do work with the FAA. The FAA comes to us with, “Hey, we’re struggling in this area”, or “We understood you had some foundational research in this area. We’d like to pull that along. We’d like you to help us pull that along.” So in my portfolio there’s a lot of that.
There’s a lot of industry since air transportation — as a traveler we’re all on somebody’s airline or an airplane —
Host:And if we’re not, some goods that we either are wearing or touching or buying —
Leighton Quon:Or eating.
Host:— or eating have been in a plane at some point in time.
Leighton Quon:So they’re very strong stakeholders in the overall system. A lot of the work we do could be generated by their needs and discussions with them on what they think some of the priorities or missing things are, some of the gaps, some of the operational problems they deal with.
Our researchers are quite brilliant in just studying the system and finding issues and problems with it based on their own research and studies. So a lot of times those will generate kind of what I’ve referred to as “foundational research”. One, find the problem. And then, two, propose a solution and start doing the research on that.
As that matures it can gain visibility by those other entities, the FAA or industry and say, “Yeah, you’re right. We need that.”
Host:And some of that research can then evolve into demonstrations, practice, and then eventually sometime down the line actual implementation like, “Okay, here’s the research. Here’s our tests.” This is how it should be actually used.
Leighton Quon:Right. And actually so my current project that I manage, the ATD project — Airspace Technology Demonstrations project — we’re focused on that tail-end where the research is becoming mature and it’s ready to be developed and tested, maybe demonstrated. That’s why the names are all in there. Either in very mature systems that we had, that NASA has here or we have access to, as well as field systems.
Maybe going out into the field at an airport or at an airline and demonstrating and trying our systems there or even working with the FAA in their labs, which most of their labs actually have the fielded systems that the FAA uses, but we have the opportunity to get in there with them and work jointly to prove the feasibility of not only the concept but that it can be embedded into their baseline systems.
House:Talk a bit about ATD. I know there’s ATD-1, ATD-2. I believe there was some testing going on at Charlotte. And we’re working on ATD-3. So for folks who have no clue, what is ATD? Go through that progress and where we’re at.
Leighton Quon:ATD-1 focused on what we called “arrival technology”. So as you’re traveling to somewhere by air, you’re in the airplane, the last 100 to 50 miles in getting to the airport. [One] generally sees a lot of congestion, especially the busy airports.
Host:Yes, holidays and stuff.
Leighton Quon:Exactly. So ATD-1 focused on three main technologies to address kind of “the rush hour” in trying to arrive at a busy airport area. It was something we called “terminal sequencing and spacing”, which is a master schedule that now gets broadcast to everybody — the controllers and things like that. So everybody kind of knows where everybody should be when.
In addition to that there were controller side tools that helped show the controllers not only the schedule that I just mentioned, but on their radar screens, kind of little markers where each aircraft should be to adhere to that schedule. Then on the flight deck we had flight deck interval management tools. These were tools for the flight crews that gave them speed cues in order to accurately position themselves behind a lead aircraft.
That’s utilizing “ADSB” technology, which is a big buzzword now–Automatic Dependence Surveillance Broadcast. It’s the higher precision satellite-based positioning equipment that everybody’s beginning to move to. So by having those three things — the schedule, where everybody should be, the tools for the controllers and the tools for the flight crews to get there —
Host:Everybody all on the same page.
Leighton Quon:— the efficiency and moving into these very busy airports is helped measurably.
Host:You guys actually tested that. That was a couple months ago or a year ago.
Leighton Quon:Well, the two-phase — the ground-side tools that I mentioned for the controllers, they went to the FAA a couple years ago. We transferred those technologies to the FAA. And those are in their implementation pipeline already in fact. For the ground tools, initial operating capability at the first site is scheduled for second quarter of fiscal year ’19 [2017]. So it’s coming up. So we’re very happy about that.
What we were doing just a couple months ago or late January/early February, we were actually flying the first prototype of the flight deck interval management hardware and software. We were up in the Pacific Northwest, the Seattle area. What was exciting about that is new procedures with new hardware, prototype hardware with prototype software, flying those new procedures on three aircraft.
The aircraft have to broadcast their position. So that’s ADSB. So we had a lead aircraft which was a Falcon 900 jet — we were engaged in a collaborative and contracted effort with Boeing that included Honeywell and United Airlines. So Honeywell provided a Falcon 900 jet to be the lead and then a Boeing 757 flight test aircraft with the new equipment on it spacing behind the Falcon. And then United Airlines —
Host:Following the leader.
Leighton Quon:— provided — yeah. Provided an aircraft they pulled right out of service. We installed prototype hardware in the cockpit. And we were able to have them fly and follow. Most of the time’s the 757 [sic], but it just needed ADSB aircraft to follow it.
Host:Not only the private sector folks and FAA but even within NASA I remember — I think NASA Langley also had a lot of work [sic] and stuff that they were working on —
Leighton Quon:Yeah. Well, in fact ATD-1 was a great joint effort between Ames and Langley research centers. Ames focused on the schedule and the controller tools, and Langley focused on the flight deck interval management or the flight deck tools, which is what we were flying in January and February of this year. So, yeah, that was a very big effort. I know that we had the associated administrator for aeronautics out there.
I had forgotten, but he reminded he used to do flight tests. As a flight test engineer many, many years ago. He just had this brief story of “I used to think it was hard for me to fly an anti-icing experiment on one aircraft. I can’t believe how well you guys are doing flying three aircraft, coordinating three aircraft in a flight test of this magnitude with prototype hardware and software. So he was very pleased to see that progress.
Host:And that makes sense. If you think of air traffic controlling, especially if it’s bad weather or during the holiday season, crazy congestion, if you can start finding some efficiencies on that space in between airplanes, if they’re pacing behind each other at the right length, almost in some way automating some of that stuff, just having a better control of understanding where everything goes, that means less time sitting in airport delays.
It’s probably safer, more fuel-efficient. There are all kinds of benefits you can get by just kind of modifying these procedures.
Leighton Quon:Exactly. Again, it’s at its best at the busiest times, which was always the hardest problem for everybody, including the passenger sitting in back. You’ve been in the middle seat. The best analogy I heard is “You’re sitting in the middle seat. You’ve come cross-country. It’s been five hours. You’re about to land. And all of a sudden you feel the aircraft make a right turn because it got too busy, and now you’re in a holding pattern.”
It’s like “So now you’re stuck in that middle seat for a little bit longer.” And with these systems, that should be if not eliminated, minimized.
Host:I think anybody who’s been on a flight has had that experience. You’re right towards the end, you’re getting to descend, and then you just circle the airport because you’re just waiting for your turn. You’re kind of like, “Really? Why are we doing this?”
Leighton Quon:Yeah.
Host:But this is the thing. Some of the research that NASA is working on is to minimize that. I know when you talk to anybody in aeronautics at NASA, they always love to say, “NASA’s with you when you fly.”
Leighton Quon:Yes.
Host:And it is a true thing. It’s with you when you’re flying, hopefully making that flight shorter and safer as you go about your day.
Leighton Quon:Yeah. So that’s ATD-1’s emphasis. ATD-2, adds to that by taking not only the arrival work we’ve completed with 1 into account but adding the airport surface operations and the departure side when you’re trying to depart the airport. Again, you’ve probably been in an airplane where you’re just waiting for what seems like minutes, tens of minutes or more for the runway, just to get on the runway —
Host:Yes. You’re taxiing and waiting for your turn.
Leighton Quon:And if you’re sitting in the terminal you can see all the planes lining up for the runway. That’s not very efficient either. And so similar premise–one of NASA’s aeronautics hallmarks is scheduling. So applying scheduling principles for both the airport surface operations as well as when to take off in order to merge with the aircraft already flying.
So kind of think of it as on-ramping into the “highway in the sky”. Figuring out those schedules and providing the tools to all of the operators, whether that’s FAA in the tower or FAA air traffic controllers or even the airlines as they try and coordinate their gate and ramp operations. Everybody gets that picture and gets a say on “Are you ready? Yes, I’m ready. It’s like, can we go now? Wait, one more minute, and you’ll be able to leave without waiting.”
Host:Nice.
Leighton Quon:So that’s ATD-2. It kind of wraps in the arrival side from one as well as the airport surface and departure operations. And also kind of the magic of that is when you’re getting into a metropolitan area, much like this San Francisco Bay Area. There are three major airports that serve. They’re all launching aircraft in the same airspace. So that’s added coordination that’s being built now also by the NASA schedulers.
Host:So looking into the future, I know you guys are already planning on ATD-3. The trilogy. I’m sure that there’s even more to come after that. So what is the future? What are you seeing?
Leighton Quon:Well, we’ve actually already initiated [ATD-]3. 3 is focusing a little bit more en route airspace. So cruise altitudes, when weather is moving across the country and airplanes are trying to find ways to get around that. We’re focusing on the weather rerouting tools right now. But it’s really about traffic flow management. So 3 is up and running also.
What’s in the future? 1, 2, and 3 — when we get the technologies from 1, 2, and 3 out there, they’re all going to be contributing to various types of efficiencies. But then we want to go beyond that, look at more of a larger systemic view. So not only will those make it out there but systemically as you try and go from your origin airport to your destination airport, what other attributes of that system need to be modernized or changed to be more efficient?
Host:So for folks looking for more information they can go to NASA.gov/Aeronautics. And we are on Twitter @NASAAmes. We’re using the hashtag #NASASiliconValley. So if anybody has questions for Leighton or complaints about how, or if anybody has suggestions for Leighton on how to make air traffic management more efficient — we’ll just send them your way and you can fix all their problems, right?
Leighton Quon:We’re always interested in hearing.
Host:Maybe it can be the foundation for future research.
Leighton Quon:You never know where those new ideas come from.
Host:Absolutely. Well, thanks for coming on over.
Leighton Quon:All right. Thank you.
[End]