Engineering and Technology - OU Community Online

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Launched on November 9, 2011, the craft was to carry a lander to Mars’ potato-shaped moon Phobos and grab samples from its surface.

But hours into its mission radio contact was lost and it remained in Earth orbit.

Now all hope of re-booting it and sending it to Mars seems gone and the craft will probably burn up on re-entry in January.

Dr Murray, Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Science was invited to help analyse images of Phobos taken during the craft’s planned orbits of it and Mars.

A volcanologist and planetary scientist, John has always been fascinated by Phobos.

The moon, with a radius of just over 11 km, orbits 5,000 km from Mars (our Moon orbits 384, 405 km from the Earth). It has been pummelled by asteroid collisions and could be partially hollow, possibly containing ice.

“It is possible Phobos was formed in situ, from a big impact on Mars and the debris thrown up accumulated,” said Dr Murray.

“Studies of the orbit of Phobos close to Mars make it highly unlikely that it was a ‘captured asteroid’,” he said.

Dr Murray said he was disappointed at the likely failure of Phobos-Grunt but remained philosophical.

“It always was a hugely ambitious project,” he said.

The mission would have taken ten months to reach Mars. A Chinese orbiter would detach and Phobos- Grunt (Russian for soil) studied the Red Planet and its moons.

In February 2013 it was due to land on Phobos and collect soil samples some of which would return to Earth via a small rocket.

Experiments would continue for a year while the samples were due to reach Earth in August 2014.

All for $165 million compared to the NASA/ESA lander mission to Mars which will cost $8.5 billion.

But Dr Murray said lessons learned from failed missions can help subsequent ones.

He was involved in the Russian Mars 96 mission that didn’t even reach Earth orbit but some of its technology was revived in the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter launched in 2003. Its imagery and data of Mars and Phobos was a success. It also carried the ill-fated Beagle 2 lander.

“Hopefully Phobos-Grunt can lift off again,” said John.

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Roger gained an MBA with the OU and has a wealth of technical knowledge and commercial and management experience. Alongside his work at Qi3, he recently formed his own company, High Q Systems Ltd, working on space technology development. He has been Sales & Marketing Manager at ABSL Space Products, a market-leading supplier of battery and instrumentation technology to the space sector.

Roger has a BSc in Electrical Engineering Science from the University of Salford, plus an MSc in Microwave Engineering & Modern Optics with Post graduate Diploma from University College London.

Can you tell us about Qi3 and what your new role involves?
Qi3 has been in existence since 1999. I have become an associate of the company to enhance its presence in the space sector - which has been showing continued growth in recent years. We have set up my role of Business Development Associate (so I’m not employed by Qi3) in order to enable me to take advantage of Qi3’s existing position in the space market and to bring my network and skills to Qi3 to expand our network of space contacts and opportunities.

How did you make the transition to where you are now?
I left full-time employment because it wasn’t giving me the opportunities I needed. I created my own company, as I have done several times in the past, to give me the freedom to pursue what I feel are the best opportunities in the space field. Establishing and managing my own company I feel is a creative leap of faith in my own abilities and one that I feel to be fulfilling.

How does your core training in electronics and microwave engineering help you in your current role?
My early engineering education and experience is still very useful to me. Although by no means now a technical specialist, I do need to understand the engineering principles involved in electronics or other engineering areas so that I can quickly understand what those specialists are telling me.

Do you think the compact, light and robust batteries used in space technology will ever be developed sufficiently to make electrical cars common-place?
This could be the case, although core battery technology is mainly developed for terrestrial rather than space applications, so the space sector benefits from general advances in battery technology. Nevertheless, the reliability and power management requirements imposed on batteries used in space applications has led to ‘spin-back’ benefits, whereby modifications of batteries for space applications have then been reapplied in terrestrial applications.

Similar to the urban myth of Teflon translating from NASA to the home, have you heard of, or is Qi3 involved in such translation projects? If so can you tell us about one briefly?
Qi3 have been involved in several hundred translation projects from physics and engineering research into industry. Of particular current interest is Geomerics in Cambridge. This company has used geometric algebra techniques developed for analysing astrophysical data and applied it to improved rendition of people’s skin and clothes in computer games. This business has now attracted millions of pounds of venture finance, it employs dozens of people and its first games are on the market.

Often fairly conventional engineering principles can have novel and exciting applications. Have you come across any in the space technology industry?
One of the most interesting of these I’ve come across is a company called Zeeko, which realised that it could manufacture lenses and mirrors with aspheric / conformal surfaces, rather than the spherical or flat surfaces commonly available. The outcome of this is improved optical performance, lower numbers of components required within an optical assembly, lower weight and cost. This has considerable benefits in industrial, defence and healthcare applications, as well as being the basis for novel approaches to telescope design.

Within our curriculum we encourage students to look at the framework of ‘rules’ within which engineers work. These include such things as engineering standards, patent law, environmental legislation and the fundamental laws of physics. How important are each of these laws to the work of Qi3?
Qi3’s work focuses primarily on finding out who wants to buy a technology and why. As a result the focus is on what the technology does, rather than how it does it. The issues above are hygiene factors, i.e. if they are not right, then they will prevent the marketing of the technology, but they don’t provide a driver for people to buy.

Space instruments need to be light, small and robust (able to withstand large variations in temperature) and in most cases durable. How does this affect your material and manufacturing options?
You are right about the need for these parameters to be borne in mind. The space environment is often very harsh and materials need to be able to withstand a range of conditions during the life of the spacecraft, such as thermal, mechanical, radiation, electrical interference and so on.

The launch environment is usually the most stressful period of the mission and materials are used and supported where possible to enable them to withstand the calculated mechanical stresses that will be imposed. During the mission, operating temperatures will follow diurnal cycling, often for many years. This will stress units, where any inadequate assembly processes or design principles could cause units to fail. This is why simulated space conditions are imposed during all levels of pre-launch testing to ensure that designs are rigorous and have margins built in.

Materials also have to be ‘space qualified’ to make sure that they do not out-gas or in any other way impact on their own or other unit operation by releasing volatile materials or failing catastrophically. At the end of the day, experienced space suppliers will start by trying to reduce mass in their early designs and optimise performance, using space qualified materials and components, and then apply space industry standard processes for screening; assembly; test; inspection; performance trending; quality assurance, and so on. This ensures that, as far as is humanly possible, errors and oversights are removed from the design and are not then introduced during the manufacture, assembly and test periods. These requirements are significant barriers to entry for new suppliers to overcome, and something which does not encourage many to enter the space field lightly. It requires experienced space personnel who have been involved in the space industry for many years and applying established principles that have been developed over many previous space missions and seen to work (part of the qualification process, in any case).

And finally, working within such a high-tech arena, what did an MBA do for you?

I started my MBA course with the OU in 1997.  For the previous 10 years I had been running a small engineering business, providing satellite systems consultancy services.  After many years in the space industry working in technical or management roles, what experience and knowledge I had gained in running a business had been picked up 'on the job' and wasn't necessarily the best way of continuing.  I felt that more formal training would be best - both for my career and for the business.  So I decided upon an OU Business School MBA.

There were many facets of the OU MBA course that benefited me.  More effective time management, as I think many students find, is valuable training in itself.  Having to work in small teams of two or three on a case study or other task was good practice - not having time to react to any of the other team members, just getting on and getting the job done together.  The courses were excellent, especially the tutorials.  Absorbing the written material in my own time then being able to come together to discuss the concepts was a good way of working, especially having to keep down a full-time job and see our daughter arrive as well (she was born 2 days after my first exam).  Life is hectic sometimes and education often has to be formed around it to be feasible.

Years afterwards, the same MBA concepts come to mind when facing business challenges, and I'm sure I will continue to benefit from the OU experience in business for many years to come.

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The Organ of Corti recycles sound from the environment, enhancing or reducing the frequencies to create a new soundscape for the listener.

Conceived by composer David Prior and architect Frances Crow as sound artists Liminal Ltd, the Organ is a series of cylinders arranged to focus or diffuse sound waves.

Keith Attenborough OU Professor of Acoustics described it as: “A meeting of physics and art”.

His expertise in the field of acoustic crystals led the pair to create the organ, or rather two – named after parts of the inner ear.
 
Each was designed to react with different soundscapes.

One, called Cochlea Unwound, is a permanent installation recycling the sounds of water at a weir in Worcester.

The Organ of Corti itself was employed as a travelling version to be ‘parked’ by a motorway, on a busy street or at a festival with members of the public immersing themselves in the sound it shapes.

Last year the Organ won a £50,000 new music prize and, in November 2011 the Noise Abatement Society John Connell Award for Innovation was jointly made to Liminal Ltd and Keith Attenborough.

At a reception at the House of Commons the NAS judges said: “This unique and beautiful experimental instrument recycles noise from the environment.

“It does not make any sound of its own, but rather uses sounds already present by framing them in a new way.

“By recycling surplus sounds from our environment, it offers new and pleasurable ways of listening to what is already there.”

Keith said the organ’s arrangement of four metre tall acrylic poles “does interesting things to sound.”

They enhance or reduce certain characteristics of the sound and, he said: “They get people to listen to sound a bit more and invent their own kind of music as they move through the sculpture.”

He said he was pleased the Organ had been recognised again - particularly as he had worked with Noise Abatement Society founder the late John Connell in the 1970s.

"I was working on the first OU Technology Foundation Course and we had 4,000 students with noise meters.

"We were able to create the first noise maps," he said. 

• See more about The Organ of Corti or play the video. here:

Today (14 November 2011) is Student Finance Day. With student fees and loans high on the agenda for those considering university, Platform caught up with some prospective students via Twitter to find out how fees have influenced their decision making so far...

Name: Mrs Claire Siciliano
Age: 27
Location: Welwyn Garden City

Name: Alexandre L Costa
Age: 34
Location: Luton

Useful links

• Student Finance Day 
• Open University Fees 2012