NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

By: Shannon Verstynen

The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) Academy offered its fourth knowledge-sharing course. Thirty students gathered at the Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building at the University of Maryland at College Park to participate June 27-29 in the course, "Satellite Attitude Control Systems: Learning from the Past and Looking to the Future with Cornelius Dennehy and Colleagues."

Cornelius Dennehy served as the NESC Discipline Expert (NDE) for this course and assembled a team to combine their expertise in the field of satellite attitude control systems. The other instructors were Frank Bauer and Rich Burns (Goddard Space Flight Center), Dr. Sanjay Garg (Glenn Research Center), Henry Hoffman (Swales Aerospace, Inc.) and Keith Hoffler (ViGYAN). Topics such as system engineering processes, applying global positioning to satellite navigation, ACS system integration and multivariable control systems were addressed.

Students were given insight to satellite attitude control systems (SACS) and the engineering process by Neil Dennehy, six decades of sea and space stories and lessons learned by Henry Hoffman, space-born global positioning system (GPS) design by Frank Bauer, automated rendezvous and docking (AR&D) by Rich Burns and implementation of multivariable control systems (MCV) by Dr. Sanjay Garg to name just a few of the topics.

Mr. Dennehy's SACS course will be available in late August as an online web-based course for those interested in taking it in a self-paced mode. The three previous courses given by Hank Rotter (Space Life Support Systems), George Hopson (Space Propulsion Systems) and Robert Kichak (Power and Avionics) are currently available online. Students can register for these courses on the NESC Academy website, http://www.nescacademy.org.

Mr. Dennehy currently serves as the NDE for guidance, navigation and control (GN&C). He has been the assistant chief for technology in the GN&C division at Goddard Space Flight Center for six years. His principal areas of expertise includes spacecraft attitude determination and control system design.

The NESC Academy was established to capture, share and preserve the lifetimes of experience and knowledge of NASA’s senior scientists and engineers; guide the next generation of NASA scientists and engineers as they develop expertise in technical problem solving; and foster interest in NASA careers. NESC, the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) and CIBER partner to design, develop and deliver the three-day classroom experiences led by selected NDEs.

The Academy will offer 15 courses in total, each focusing on a specific SPRT discipline area such as flight sciences, propulsion, robotic operations and human factors. The next course is scheduled for Dec. 5-7 and features Cynthia Null and colleagues on the topic of Human Factors. For more information on the NESC Academy, please visit http://www.nescacademy.org.

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