A conversation with Roger Hunter, Program Manager for the Spacecraft Technology Program at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.
Transcript
Host (Matthew Buffington): You are listening to NASA in Silicon Valley episode 67. Kimberly, tell us about our guest today!
Kimberly Minafra: Hey, Matt! Well, we have Roger Hunter. He’s the program manager for the NASA Spacecraft Technology Program, where he actually oversees the progress of technologies that are demonstrated on small satellites, we also call them CubeSats because they’re the size of a shoebox, for a variety of missions for NASA.
Host:This is a fun thing, the Small Sats, because you think of these tiny, little, Kleenex box sized small satellites. And it’s not just NASA working on this stuff, you have tech companies in the area, in Silicon Valley working on this, you have a ton of universities and groups, all working on this as a new platform.
Kimberly Minafra: Oh yeah, and they’re so popular that it’s more actually encouraged to have outside non-NASA people be a part of this as our partners. They can actually pack so much in these little four inch by four inch cubes to go ride on larger missions. Like this one coming up on November 11th! We actually have four small sat missions that will be taking a ride to the International Space Station.
Host:I get a kick out of this because you think of the big rocket with the big multimillion dollar payload. Really expensive to catch a ride on a rocket, but fortunately there’s little nooks and crannies on that rocket where you can put little Small Sats and people can like take advantage of it.
Kimberly Minafra: Oh yeah, and it’s a lot lower cost for the actual missions themselves. It costs about a quarter of the price of a larger mission. And even before that, which he may be talking about in his podcast, he was the project manager for the Kepler mission, which was our mission to see and look for Earth-sized habitable zone planets in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Host:So before we completely spoil the entire episode, just a reminder we have a phone number. If you have any comments, questions, we are at (650) 604-1400. You can give us a call, just like our friend Raymond did, but Raymond called and said he had a question, and asked us to call him back. And Raymond, if you’re listening out there, go ahead and just call us back, leave your question, we’ll record it, and then we’ll add that to a future episode as we go along.
But for the folks who don’t want to call and actually use your voice, and you want to type it on the internet, we’re using the hashtag #NASASiliconValley. But before we jump in, I want to give a shout out. We are a NASA podcast, we are not the only NASA podcast! And there is a new podcast that’s going to be starting out of headquarters, hosted by NASA’s very own director of planetary science, Dr. Jim Green. This is called Gravity Assist, and basically it’s a virtual tour of the solar system and beyond, talking to a whole wide range of scientists. I think they’re actually kicking it off with the Sun, and working their way through 10 episodes, all the way until they end up talking about Pluto and beyond. But today, for this episode…
Kimberly Minafra:… Now let’s hear from Roger Hunter.
[Music]
Matthew Buffington: What brought you to NASA? How did you end up in Silicon Valley? Tell us about you.
Roger Hunter: I was working for The Boeing Corporation, running global positioning systems for them. And that was after I had a career in the Air Force. And I retired from the Air Force after 22 years and went to work for The Boeing Corporation afterward because they had a position lined up that just seemed right up my alley. And it was all space systems, again. Because most of the time that I was with the Air Force, I was doing a lot of space systems’ activities, whether it was designing ground systems or actually operating a spacecraft or planning systems for the future.
And when I decided to retire from the Air Force, The Boeing Corporation recruited me to come run their global positioning system activities in Colorado Springs. And it was in support of, guess who? The U.S. Air Force, again. And so, I spent a lot of time redoing some of the things I had done when I was in the Air Force, and ended up managing a nice team of people there that was providing sustainment for all of the Air Force ground systems that controlled GPS satellites, and also helping perform the analysis for the Air Force on how well the GPS satellites were performing.
Host:Well, I would imagine, it’s very much the same way — because you’re thinking of NASA, and you think of the astronauts and how much infrastructure and humans go to support them doing their work. I would imagine, it was probably the same for you in the Air Force. It was like you have the people who fly the planes, obviously a much larger group than astronauts, but there’s a whole —
Roger Hunter: There’s a whole infrastructure that supports the team.
Host:Exactly. Yeah.
Roger Hunter: And, as a matter of fact, they talk about the pointy end of the stick when you’re in the Air Force. Were the ones that actually were, if you will, guns on target or bombs on target — things like that. But there’s a whole infrastructure behind that that helps that team be successful.
And it was, while I was working for Boeing in Colorado Springs, that I received a phone call, out of the blue, from the former NASA Ames Center Director, Pete Worden and one of his directors, Alan Weston. And I thought it was just a casual conversation at first, and all of a sudden, he says —
Host: Then the pitch came.
Roger Hunter: The pitch came. He says, “We would like for you to come work with us on a mission called Kepler.” And I didn’t know that NASA had a mission called Kepler because I was keeping up with NASA at the time. And, I knew who Johannes Kepler was from my math and physics days at the University of Georgia. And they said, “Oh, we’re building a telescope to go search the galaxy to see if there are other earth’s out there.” And I said, “You have my attention.” [Laughter] I said, “Go on. Tell me more about when you’re going to do this.”
And this was early 2008, and the Kepler space telescope was still under development. And they wanted somebody to come work with the team, who had some experience managing large teams, and also had experience bringing a space telescope or a space system from development into operations. And I said, “Well, where do I sign?” And I said, “You only get two chances in life, to go either, one, work for NASA, or run a mission called Kepler that is in search of one of the most fundamental questions that humankind has always had. Are we alone?”
Host: Yeah. Absolutely.
Roger Hunter: And you want to go look for — you think about this when you’re a kid.
Host: Yeah. Totally.
Roger Hunter: You look up in the sky and say, “Is there another earth out there?” And I thought, “Wow, we’re actually going to go do this. And NASA is actually going to go build a telescope called Kepler to go look for another earth.” And I said, “Where do I sign?”
Host: Exactly. Well, it’s like instead of daydreaming about science fiction, you get to do science fact —
Roger Hunter: Exactly.
Host: — and actually prove: Is this the real thing or not?
Roger Hunter: You’re right. Because it was. It was turning science fiction into science fact.
And so, I left Boeing and moved to Silicon Valley in early 2008. And we helped continue the development of this space telescope, until we launched it in early 2009. And so, I was a Kepler program manager for about six years. And towards the end of the baseline mission —
Host: Yeah. The primary mission.
Roger Hunter: — the primary mission, Pete Worden, who was still the Center Director, asked me to move over into a new area called the Small Spacecraft Technology Program. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the last two or three years at NASA.
Host: So moving over into small spacecraft, was it mainly just looking at smaller missions? Or were you moving into the territory of CubeSats and that kind of work?
Roger Hunter: It’s both. It was moving into CubeSats, which is sort of a new paradigm out there. Because we, as in NASA, also academia, and industry have been looking at these small spacecraft, which were basically the size of a tissue box or the size of a loaf of bread. And looking where technology and electronics revolution has brought us, we were thinking, “We can actually do science with these things.”
Host: Yeah.
Roger Hunter: And so, that’s what has happened. That’s where the industry has brought us now. And NASA is now looking at using spacecraft, of this size, to actually go do science.
Host: And so, I would imagine, when you moved into the Air Force and you’re working — I’m sure there was, obviously, some set mission, set program, some projects. You move in and you’re kind of filling in a position on the team. And it’s already a well-oiled machine. But, especially, even at NASA, there’s certain — whether it’s a telescope that’s already in the sky, a mission that’s already ongoing — but you’re going in to do small spacecraft. You’re accepting into something that hasn’t been done. You’re almost kind of building it from scratch that is going to be a whole different thing. It’s not like you’re moving into something that’s already established.
Roger Hunter: It’s a new mindset. Because when you look at some of the — many of the telescopes that NASA has flown before, they’re rather large. They’re big entities.
Host: Millions and billions — are millions of dollars.
Roger Hunter: Millions and billions of dollars, in some cases.
Host: Wow.
Roger Hunter: And they’re called, “Great Observatories,” because of the magnitude of the mission that they’re either conducting or the amount of money and time that has gone into the development of these things. They’re, essentially, one-offs. You know, no one had built a Tubble before a Hubble was built. No one had built a James Webb Space Telescope before it was built. And they’re one-of-a-kind. And they are artisanal, if you will. But we are looking —
Host: It’s custom-made.
Roger Hunter: They’re custom-made. They’re custom-made units. But we’re looking at CubeSats and small satellites as more of a commodity. How can you make lots of these, and then go do a mission with them. And if a few of them fail, you don’t jeopardize the mission?
Host: Yeah.
Roger Hunter: Think about that, from the perspective, if a singular system onboard one of those giant spacecraft’s fails. You’re in jeopardy of losing the mission itself. You build in redundancy, of course, but now we’re looking in making these small spacecraft much more redundant, much more robust, much more flexible.
Host: Yeah. And even for like a large thing, like a Hubble or a Kepler, there’s a whole lot of — you have to be very conservative on what you’re doing. You have to: “Make for sure you have the redundancy built in. This thing is going to work. We’re not wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on this thing.” So you have to be very conservative and thoughtful in doing this. But for something like SmallSats, where you’re kind of opening it up, you’re in an opportunity where you can get kind of ambitious —
Roger Hunter: Right. You can. You can actually —
Host: — and stretch your legs out.
Roger Hunter: You can take more risk.
Host: Yes. Exactly.
Roger Hunter: That’s the name of the game in the small spacecraft area. Because you can build more of them at a much lower cost. And when you can do that, you can take more risk for the things that you’re trying to do.
Host: And so, talk a little bit about starting those programs and working in those early days. How do you even begin something from scratch like that?
Roger Hunter: Well, you do it from an envelope. [Laughter]
Host: Nice.
Roger Hunter: Sometimes you scratch these things on the back of an envelope. But we’re looking at: What are the things that we can do with the electronics and technology revolution that has brought us to today? And just package that into something that you can go do science with. For example, if you look at your smartphone.
Host: Absolutely.
Roger Hunter: Yet, we have built a spacecraft that we called PhoneSat. Because we want to prove that you can take the guts out of a smartphone and put it into one of these 1U size — which is like 10 centimeters — on the edge of a CubeSat — 10 x 10 x 10 centimeters — and put the guts of the smartphone inside that, launch it into space, and see what it does.
Host: How nice.
Roger Hunter: And we turned that into the first spacecraft. So let’s call it PhoneSat because it was based upon a smartphone.
Host: Yeah. And it makes sense because you couldn’t have done this in the ’80s or in the ’90s, you know?
Roger Hunter: No, you couldn’t.
Host: This is only with the advent of smartphones, and electronics getting smaller and smaller and smaller, and batteries, and sensors, and cameras. Now, it’s able to take advantage of it.
Roger Hunter: Absolutely. Because if you look at the processing power in your smartphone today and the computers back in the ’60s, it took a room size to provide the processing power that little smartphone gives you today.
Host: And so talk a little bit more about PhoneSat. Is this just one phone? Are these CubeSat things? Is it like a swarm of them? How does it work? What are you doing with that?
Roger Hunter: Well, the first ones were just singular. And we also proved that the technology works, and we can get it into space —
Host: You got it there.
Roger Hunter: — got it there — and see how it reacts. And, of course, the first couple we actually — we broke them.
Host: [Laughs] Nice.
Roger Hunter: But that’s what happens.
Host: Of course.
Roger Hunter: You break these things, but you learn from that. And then the next ones, you get a little better. Then you get to the point where you don’t break them. And now, we’re looking at — for example, let’s think about how GPS operates. That was a constellation of spacecraft. To provide you worldwide coverage, you needed an entire constellation. Well, the way NASA does science —
Host: When you say constellation, what — for people who —
Roger Hunter: That’s mini-spacecraft orbiting the earth, and they’re all interconnected. They’re all doing the same kind of mission.
Host: Okay.
Roger Hunter: Now, think of having a bunch of satellites that are oriented towards science. And you want to collect a lot of science data because the more data you have, the better the science. And so, if you can orbit a bunch of satellites at one time, and they’re all very small, you can launch them all at once, on one rocket, deploy them, and then collect science across the entire globe or across an entire region, allowing you more data collection, which gives a scientist more data to analyze.
Host: And then, I would imagine, that also plays into — typically a satellite is looking at one part of the earth. And it can’t look at it all at once, obviously.
Roger Hunter: That’s right.
Host: But with many of these smaller satellites, you can cover a bigger width.
Roger Hunter: Exactly, as opposed to just collecting data singularly across a path, across the earth. As the spacecraft orbits the earth, you can deploy many of these and collect data from many different advantage points. And when you can do that, then that improves the science that you can collect. And it informs the scientists better about what the earth is doing, for example, climate change. If you can collect multiple data points of science across the entire globe, simultaneously, that can give you a better feel of how the climate is reacting, how the climate is changing, and how you can assess what’s going to happen on the surface of the planet better.
Host: And so, I’m guessing, during the early days of starting, you know, working with SmallSats, CubeSats, doing this kind of stuff — was it primarily NASA researchers and NASA engineers and scientists working on this stuff? At what point do you start branching out into Universities, companies, startups? How does that work out?
Roger Hunter: Oh, in many cases, the Universities and the other industry were leading the way.
Host: Oh, wow.
Roger Hunter: As a matter of fact, when you look at the form, fit, and function of CubeSats, they were established at a University level. And NASA is following this. As a matter of fact, a lot of the innovation that’s going on now is happening at University or in industry. And NASA is partnering with a number of these Universities and a number of these industries across not just the United States, but around the globe to accelerate the development in small spacecraft technologies.
Host: And, I know a big thing that Ames has been working on are, what we affectionately call, the Virtual Institutes.
Roger Hunter: Right.
Host: Where it’s not only just NASA working with special space act agreements with other people, but it’s actually creating an institute, bringing in all of these different communities who are working on the stuff so that people aren’t like silos. And they can share information and share their progress — and that even moved into the whole virtual institute for small satellites.
Roger Hunter: Correct. We’ve had some virtual institutes already established that are oriented towards, for example, solar system exploration and research. And so, NASA saw the need to copy that success from a small spacecraft perspective. And so now, NASA has established a Small Spacecraft Virtual Institute, which is going to, hopefully, mimic the success that we’ve had in these other virtual institutes and further the sharing of knowledge, further the collaboration, further the coordination between not just NASA centers, but across academia and industry alike. So that we can all take advantage of the revolution that’s going on in electronics and technology to make small spacecraft even more capable and flexible than they are today.
Host: Well, even thinking about the people who are listening to this podcast or your students, interns, who are wanting to get jobs with NASA, getting jobs working in the space industry. It’s like now those people who are applying for these internships, applying for jobs, could literally have small satellite missions on their resume that they did through high school or college. You know, they’ve already done this stuff.
Roger Hunter: That’s true. As a matter of fact, there’s a number of Universities that are flying their own missions.
Host: Oh, wow.
Roger Hunter: And they are using that to further the research and development that’s going on at their institute so that they can infuse that into industry. There’s even elementary schools that are now building small spacecraft and launching them.
Host: So talk a little bit about yourself, like your day-to-day, what you’re working with on SmallSats now. What do you come in? You know, you get your coffee, open your laptop. How’s it look?
Roger Hunter: Well, we’re actually marching towards some upcoming launches. And so, we spend a bit of time right now on, what we call, the end-game of getting the spacecraft into orbit.
We have two spacecraft that are launching on September 12th. And that they’re going to go up on a Cygnus resupply mission to the International Space Station. And these two spacecraft, one is called OCSD and it’s an acronym for the: Optical Communications and Sensor Demonstration.
Host: Of course, NASA, you have to have an acronym.
Roger Hunter: Yes. Oh, absolutely. We live by acronyms.
Host: Exactly.
Roger Hunter: And another one is called ISARA, which stands for: Integrated Solar Array Reflectarray. Now, both of these are demonstrations of first-time uses for NASA and for anybody, for that matter. And this is another example of where NASA is at the cutting-edge of developing some technologies that are going to improve our small spacecraft technology.
Now, the first one, the OCSD, is going to demonstrate, for the first time, laser communications from a CubeSat to earth and, also, laser communications from the earth to the CubeSat. We think it is necessary, given the expected number of small satellites that are going to be launched in the coming years. And there will be many spacecraft out there. And the regular electromagnetic band radio frequencies are getting crowded. And so, we see the necessity of moving to communication by laser or communication by light.
Host: I was going to say — normally when you talk about communications you specifically said, “Laser communications.” So the sci-fi sense is going off, of like, “Oh, laser is into communications.” So this is, basically, electromagnetic — I would imagine, yeah, it just doesn’t work the same, I guess.
Roger Hunter: No, it doesn’t. There is a difference.
Host: There’s different factors involved.
Roger Hunter: Because it has to use — there’s a lot of things that you have to take into consideration when you’re using laser communication from space. You have to point the thing accurately. Because when you’re pointing a laser, it’s very precise in where you originate the laser from and also where you terminate the laser on the ground. And so, we have to make sure that that type of pointing is accurate enough so that you can complete, if you will, the circuit between the small spacecraft and the ground terminal.
Now, we had only done laser communication once before. It was a bigger spacecraft, and it was from the moon. Remember, LADEE?
Host: Yeah.
Roger Hunter: And that was just a one-way communication. And that was to gather a lot of information on the LADEE spacecraft. And then we blasted it back down to the earth, and it worked perfectly. Well, now we want to extend that to CubeSats. So, no one’s done this before.
And so, when this spacecraft launches it’s going to spend a little bit of time inside this Cygnus resupply capsule while it’s attached to the International Space Station. Because they’ve got to resupply the space station. They’re going to take material off the capsule and then exchange stuff that was used on the ISS back onto the capsule. And then the Cygnus capsule will maneuver away from the International Space Station to a higher orbit. And then it will deploy our CubeSats.
We will go through a readiness checkout of the CubeSats. And then we will conduct the experiment. We will lase from the ground to the CubeSats. And then, when they collect more data, they will lase from the CubeSat to the ground. And there will be two of them that will be doing this mission.
Host: And this is critical. Because if you can prove this, show that it works, have it functioning — then that is just — for the next generation, those SmallSats that go up, and like, “Hey, we’ve already done this. Let’s add this.” And then have other functionality put on top.
Roger Hunter: Exactly. And there will be other users out there — whether they’re within NASA or within the Air Force, perhaps, or within industry — who would be very interested in the success of this mission. They want to see that this laser communications is going to work. And if we can prove that it does, then they will welcome that new technology into their systems.
Host: So, talk about the other one.
Roger Hunter: Okay. Integrated Solar Array Reflectarray.
Host: I was going to see if I could remember. All I could remember is “array” something, so —
Roger Hunter: Yes.
Host: — I’m glad you have it.
Roger Hunter: This is another first of its kind. In this case, we have the first demonstration of Ka-band communications from a CubeSat. But what’s also interesting about this is that we have an antenna onboard the CubeSat. One side of it is the antenna, but the other side of that structure are solar cells. So you have a part of the spacecraft that provides two functions. One side helps reflect the Ka-band or the signal from the CubeSat to the ground while the other side of that structure is collecting solar energy and providing power to the spacecraft. So this will be a first demonstration of that technology as well.
Host: Oh, wow. And where do you see that that could go? You know, for other people — I mean, is it just more of — I don’t know — like a way that these SmallSats can gather more power or power from just the —
Roger Hunter: Well, yeah. It’s like a dual-use technology. For example, you’re using to not just generate power for your spacecraft, but you’re also using it to help generate your communications for your spacecraft.
Host: Oh, so it’s more like — it’s just self-sustaining.
Roger Hunter: Yeah. You become a dual-use technology, essentially. What happens, in this case, is that most of your subsystems are one function. And this is a stepping on the path of making multifunctional spacecraft.
Host: Oh, wow. And then that just exponentially grows. Not only do you have multiple small satellites out there, you have your swarm. But then each one can do multiple things.
Roger Hunter: Yes. Think of the chassis for your car. It serves one function. And for your spacecraft, you have a chassis that you bolt all your things inside. Whether it’s your sensors, your batteries or your attitude, determination, control subsystem — think if that structure was also not only providing a form for your spacecraft to attach parts to, but also served as a battery. Now, you’re getting into a spacecraft that’s multifunctional. And that helps you reduce the weight of your spacecraft, but also gives you more capability and more robustness to your spacecraft. Those are some of the things we’re working on for the future.
Host: And so, if I understand, you have another launch coming up that’s apart from these two?
Roger Hunter: Yes. It’s apart from the first two I mentioned. This one that launches in October is called CPOD for: CubeSat Proximity Operations Demonstration.
Host: Always with the acronym.
Roger Hunter: Always the acronyms.
And this one is going to be the first demonstration ever of two spacecraft, two small spacecraft, two CubeSat spacecraft that are going to dock with each other.
Host: Okay. I remember — we are recording this in June, and we just recently had — the Centennial Challenge of SmallSats awards were announced. And we have animations. I’ve seen this, of the SmallSats, circling each other, docking.
Roger Hunter: Yeah. They deploy attached to each other. And then after they maneuver some distance from the stage of the rocket that gets them into orbit, they will detach, move to a distance, tens of kilometers, and then we will initiate them. We’ll turn them on. And then they will start looking for each other.
Host: Nice.
Roger Hunter: And then they will start homing in on each other, and they do this circular pattern.
Host: They’re kind of circling around.
Roger Hunter: Yeah. And they circle around, and then, eventually, they will come together. And there is a mechanical docking mechanism; they’re like little fingers. And then they grab each other. And then there are electromagnets that are turned on, and it finishes the docking of the two.
We’ve never done this before for CubeSats. And so, we want to demonstrate this for the first time. Why is this important? We envision that many of the large observatories, that we may send into space in the future, are going to be manufactured in orbit and assembled in orbit, which means that some parts of these spacecraft will have to dock with each other. And so we’re proving out some of the concepts today that will enable some of the missions that we will fly in the future.
Host: Wow. And you can just think about that. You have the laser communication, so you’re gathering data and sending it back, probably, in like real-time. They’re doing multiple functions; they’re dual-use. But then also moving it into: they can dock, they can separate. You have this swarm of SmallSats that are able to serve different functions.
Roger Hunter: Exactly.
Host: And so, for anybody who is listening, who is like, you’ve peaked their interest — they’re all about learning more about SmallSats — I believe, you have nasa.gov/smallsat.
Roger Hunter: Right.
Host: So for anybody who is looking for information, I’m sure there’s a lot of information from the Centennial Challenge that happened in June. And all that you could hope for, to learn all there is about the small satellites —
Roger Hunter: Yep. Just google: NASA and small spacecraft technology program.
Host: Excellent. Yeah. In the show notes, we’ll add links to everything so if anybody has any questions, want to learn more about that. Also, we are on Twitter @nasaames. We’re using the #NASASiliconValley. So if anybody has questions for Roger, feel free to ping us there, and we’ll get back to Roger and go ahead and send some responses back and forth.
Roger Hunter: Sounds awesome.
Host: So, excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming over.
Roger Hunter: No, thank you.
[End]