[Ground-station] Sounding Rockets and FPGAs - at a University

[Michelle Thompson]

Well said. Let's see what we can do here with that type of approach, give
it a good try, and then take stock.

-Michelle W5NYV




On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 11:15 AM Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com> wrote:

> A university is the very embodiment of privilege.
>
> Since we really can't get away from privilege at the moment, our best
> option, IMO, is to start by offering unpaid career development internships,
> directly rather than through the institution, and see if they get taken. If
> they don't, we need to get a grant for doing them, or give up the plan.
>
> Sure, just about everyone would rather do what they like, and for some
> that is working at ORI, instead of being a wage-slave to support their
> family. And I think about this a lot. But it is out of the range of ORI to
> solve.
>
>     Thanks
>
>     Bruce
>
> On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 9:04 AM Michelle Thompson <
> mountain.michelle at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Bruce, this makes a lot of sense to me, but I have a question.
>>
>> How would we address the "unfunded internship" criticism? I think we
>> would probably have to pay people to make this work well? Or do you think
>> differently?
>>
>> Every few weeks I hear from someone that tells me they wish they could
>> work for ORI, but can't afford to.
>>
>> This isn't new. We have seen this for decades now. We do have a serious
>> privilege problem in open source work. Open source offers real promise of
>> meaningful and important work, but people are not paid to do it (in
>> general). Therefore, only independently wealthy or very healthy and
>> enthusiastic people can show up. There are exceptions. They are very rare.
>>
>> So, what do we need to do in order to ensure the Career Development
>> Internship idea works in the best way?
>>
>> -Michelle W5NYV
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 7, 2021 at 9:29 PM Bruce Perens via Ground-Station
>> <ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>>
>>> I think the "career development" internship projects are what ORI was
>>> mainly looking for - where the student would gain benefit from working on
>>> the project and did not need to be funded.
>>>
>>> Where it is necessary to fund the University researcher, there will
>>> always be the question of whether we would be better off directly funding
>>> someone. This will often be true if there is not a particular advantage
>>> (funding, for example) to be gained from working with the university.
>>>
>>> A lot of the time people underestimate the administrative overhead. The
>>> last time I was working for DARPA, I had to hire a 1/3 time accountant just
>>> to keep up with paperwork. And then came the "floor checks", where a
>>> government inspector dropped in unannounced and tried to connect what we
>>> were doing at that moment with the contract we were supposed to be working
>>> on. And after all of this accounting to make sure we were handling
>>> their money correctly, they abandoned a $250K supercomputer *in place *at
>>> the end of the contract.
>>>
>>> Universities are not quite so bad, but the overhead of working with them
>>> will never be negligible.
>>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 7, 2021 at 8:00 PM Mike parker via Ground-Station
>>> <ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Zach & everyone,
>>>> Brings back a few memories.
>>>> A couple of points.
>>>> 1. The cost could/would have been much higher if a few of us had not
>>>> been working on a project that put us in the right room at the right time.
>>>> As I recall, Bob M. was first to suggest that there was not only a free
>>>> (well almost) ride to geo, but also attitude control and power.  I
>>>> committed Rincon support if Bob would get the rest.  I think we were lucky,
>>>> the stars would never have aligned so easy if we had started with system
>>>> requirements, etc.
>>>> 2. Rincon’ total IRAD contribution was probably on the order of $100k.
>>>> It was NOT a donation, but their contribution to a joint research effort.
>>>> This is an important distinction.  For a sub chapter S Corp., which Rincon
>>>> is, donations come straight out of profit.  So they will never make a
>>>> simple donation.
>>>> 3. Luck, see item 1, has been the key factor for me in getting involved
>>>> in several projects, including a very early Rincon cubesat project where
>>>> unfortunately the Russian SS18 based booster failed.
>>>> I won’t go into any more details unless someone is interested.
>>>> Mike Parker, kt7d
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>
>>>> On Apr 7, 2021, at 6:20 PM, Leffke, Zachary via Ground-Station
>>>> <ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> 
>>>>
>>>> Hi Michelle,
>>>>
>>>> Good questions, and definitely need to clarify a few points.  Again,
>>>> normal disclaimer of this is just my perspective (and apologies again for
>>>> long winded emails, I care!).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Short(er) version first, with direct answers (in red) to Michele’s
>>>> questions:
>>>>
>>>> I think this means we have to look like, or comply with the
>>>> requirements of, sponsored research from the commercial sector - in order
>>>> to get any student time at all? Not necessarily, it’s a matter of
>>>> specific objectives, scope, specific personalities involved, and managing
>>>> expectations at both sides.  I was just offering ‘sponsored research’ as
>>>> way to have more of a guaranteed return on investment, via more formal
>>>> relationships than a $0 MOU (with lots of VT heavy examples, due to my
>>>> obvious bias, but this might also be useful for contracting services from
>>>> other groups as well).  This is one way to get guaranteed ‘research faculty
>>>> time and attention on your project’ which can be a ‘force multiplier’ of
>>>> sorts in terms of student engagement in addition to actually doing
>>>> professional grade work.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The people responsible for the GEO effort a few years ago are at ORI.
>>>> Yup!
>>>>
>>>> We've grown since then, and added expertise, raised 5x the funding, and
>>>> have results. Agreed!  Sort of linked with your last question below
>>>> (for added context to what follows) VT doesn’t have to be the ‘only’
>>>> partner for large scope missions (like GEO).  An ORI lead effort, where
>>>> those results from the dedicated volunteers can be leveraged, with VT maybe
>>>> taking on things like systems engineering for a specific vehicle/platform,
>>>> dealing with launch constraints and launch vehicle integration, payload
>>>> integration, fabrication, testing, would certainly be a decent way to go.
>>>> I personally want to do more ‘RF and comms stuff’, but if that work went to
>>>> some other university and we just did the ‘other AOE type stuff’ that has
>>>> to get done for a full mission, then very well!  This also doesn’t have to
>>>> be all ‘ORI’ funding situation either, VT (and other universities, formally
>>>> engaged) can add a ‘flavor’ to proposals to other groups to drum up more $$
>>>> support, either in the form of sub-contractors to ORI or as co-PIs.  One
>>>> might Argue that MORE universities in the mix makes for stronger ‘joint
>>>> proposals.’
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The donation you describe - is this the $100,000 paid to Millenium
>>>> Space Systems for the engineering review? That worked, because the design
>>>> was (and is, in its present form) useful and of high quality. It was not a
>>>> surprise that it passed the review. No.  $100k to MSS came from AMSAT
>>>> and was not a donation to them, and was not what I was referring to.  That
>>>> was an engineering fee to support the study to determine if MSS/Air Force
>>>> increased mission scope to include a secondary Amateur Radio payload would
>>>> that payload represent a potential negative impact to the primary Air Force
>>>> mission.  I’m talking of a separate donation to VT from a specific donor
>>>> (FA) that funded our research faculty time commitment, and the grad
>>>> students/undergrads involved, to actually develop the PDR level design
>>>> under the MSS constraints, to engage with MSS to support their study and
>>>> make them confident we would be ‘no impact’.  We designed in parallel with
>>>> learning/understanding the constraints of their system/mission in order to
>>>> essentially tailor the design to a ‘no impact to primary mission’ result.
>>>> And that was only the ‘initial’ result…..had the program continued there
>>>> were a lot more ‘gates’ to get through that we were prepared to tackle,
>>>> (like getting to CDR, passing subsystem tests, integration tests, flight
>>>> readiness reviews, etc……essentially ‘proving’ that we would be ‘no impact’).
>>>>
>>>> Was this engineering study the only work product? I would argue no.
>>>> Two primary results (maybe three, and then a 4th for VT).  1) The MSS
>>>> design study, and the approval from them/Air Force to fly (I think
>>>> demonstrating this is huge, and harkens back to early OSCARs on NRO launch
>>>> vehicles).  2) the actual PDR-level design. 3) all the excitement, effort,
>>>> and commitment from so many folks involved lead to the founding of ORI,
>>>> woot! (not one of the original goals, but I would argue still a useful end
>>>> result).  4) Tack on to that, a LOT of student (and faculty) experience was
>>>> gained from that effort (its valuable to us for a student to hear what a
>>>> company, gov’t group, or other customer might ask questions about during a
>>>> review process….similar to, but also somehow very different from what might
>>>> be asked during a Master’s defense), leading to internships and employment
>>>> based on efforts during that work (but that’s understandably more important
>>>> to VT than maybe to ORI/AMSAT….again, clarity in our institutional goals I
>>>> think is key to future success….we for example will ALWAYS have a baked in
>>>> student focused bias for anything we engage on, big or small, sponsored or
>>>> under $0 MOU).
>>>>
>>>> If so, then is it fair to say that we have to come up with a lot more
>>>> funding in order to work with VT? Depends on what we are talking
>>>> about, but again, not necessarily.  If we are talking about GEO level end
>>>> goals, and you want professional engineers (research faculty, with student
>>>> support) adapting the PDR-level design to say a NOAA GOES satellite,
>>>> carrying through to CDR, to Flight Readiness, to Integration, etc. and
>>>> working with ORI volunteers to take their work and integrate it into the
>>>> system, and you don’t want to tolerate ‘more than normal’ program risk for
>>>> such a mission, etc. etc. than yeah that might require significant
>>>> funding.  That doesn’t mean ORI has to ‘come up with the money’ though.  I
>>>> think we would be willing to work with ORI for such an effort to drum up
>>>> the money via other funding sources (maybe ARDC, maybe NSF/NASA, or any
>>>> number of groups).  Remember we only got to PDR with that design……so moving
>>>> on to CDR and beyond for a specific flight would take some doing, and for
>>>> the WFOV/GEO mission there was the small detail of coming up with $5
>>>> million to defray launch costs (may not be a requirement for other future
>>>> GEO efforts, but $5 million to get to GEO is arguably ‘very cheap’,
>>>> especially for a system where the secondary payload doesn’t have to manage
>>>> the overall platform’s health, staying inside a ‘geo box’, worrying about
>>>> deorbit/graveyard orbit and other SSA concerns, etc.).  So I would state it
>>>> more like: ‘The VT/ORI team would have to come up with plans for more
>>>> funding for ambitious joint efforts” (like GEO, and ‘VT/ORI team’ could be
>>>> modified to include a lot of other groups).  If on the other hand we are
>>>> talking about smaller focused efforts, on specific tasks, some funding
>>>> would certainly help research faculty stay engaged more and serve as ‘force
>>>> multipliers’ for ORI.  And if ORI is willing to accept significant risk, we
>>>> volunteer our free time as often as we can to supervise student
>>>> projects…..that’s more of a risk though in that we might have to sacrifice
>>>> focus there in the interest of the sponsored programs that ‘pay the
>>>> bills’.  I think they key is being open, honest, and transparent with each
>>>> other about expectations.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Finally, everything I just talked about is related to keeping faculty
>>>> engaged on ORI related projects (because that’s where my bias lies in terms
>>>> of ‘getting stuff done’, and why I keep caveating with ‘my two cents’ and
>>>> IMHO phrases)…….there are other ways to engage with the University at
>>>> levels that are well above my pay grade, but could represent significant
>>>> value to both groups…..I don’t REALLY know what I’m talking about here, but
>>>> maybe one over simplified example of what I’m trying to express is ‘launch
>>>> opportunities.’  As a second example, ITAR and sometimes even classified
>>>> stuff may still be a thing ORI has to confront if they want to keep all
>>>> options open, and Universities (not just VT, but we’re on the list too)
>>>> might be positioned to help……As an example where both of those two things
>>>> come together:  CalPoly for example handles smallsat integration on NRO
>>>> launch vehicles, AMSAT launched FOX-1A on an NRO vehicle, no AMSAT
>>>> volunteer on that project had to get a clearance, they got their seat
>>>> through ElaNa and somethings did happen behind closed doors…but the Fox-1A
>>>> plans are all published.  Other opportunities might require that kind of
>>>> flavor (like secondary payloads on Air Force satellites)……….(again I’m
>>>> probably over simplifying this, which is why I say its above my pay
>>>> grade…..but the opportunities are there).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> All of the above was the ‘short version’.  Keep reading if still
>>>> interested (and still awake, thanks to all that made it this far).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 1.       To get student time at all question.  This does NOT
>>>> necessarily require funding all the time (from a VT point of view).  We
>>>> advise projects all the time on a volunteer basis, and sometimes we have
>>>> overhead funds that can support faculty time (kind of like IRAD funds).
>>>> What is DOES mean is that expectations need to be managed on both sides and
>>>> the level of ‘control’ from an ORI perspective might not be the same as can
>>>> be expected from something like a sponsored research program (where they
>>>> would be treated like a formal ‘customer’).  It also means the specific
>>>> individuals involved and their ability to ‘commit’ needs to be at least
>>>> discussed up front (along with all the grand ideas)…..I for example am
>>>> guilty of being very eager to say ‘yes’ to a project, especially if it is
>>>> specifically RF focused, regardless of other commitments on my time (which
>>>> is NOT a good time management thing, and can lead to less than spectacular
>>>> results, despite my initial optimism).  Other colleagues of mine are
>>>> typically better (IMHO) about when to say yes or no to taking something on
>>>> as volunteer effort.  Point is, ‘personalities’ and specific rank within
>>>> the university and ability to control one’s own schedule need to be
>>>> factored into go/go no decisions.  There is also the semesterly ‘cycle’
>>>> that needs to be factored in for the overall schedule, particularly if we
>>>> want to set up something like a course credit project for students (this
>>>> also applies to sponsored programs though).  This is all in contrast to
>>>> sponsored research where you can expected hard deliverables and better
>>>> overall program management and tracking of the project.
>>>>
>>>> 2.       If ORI had a structure that could formally sponsor funded
>>>> research efforts, that might make it easier to ‘own the work’.  If ORI then
>>>> elects to publish all that work, or makes publication a requirement of the
>>>> work (or posting code via Github as a contract deliverable, etc.), they
>>>> certainly would have that power.  As a University, I don’t think you would
>>>> have any arguments from us on that front, students and faculty need to
>>>> publish (there is some nuance there though, if using proprietary IP cores
>>>> on FPGAs as just one example, that might have some constraints we can’t get
>>>> out of).  I’m no contracting expert, but formal ‘sponsored research’ comes
>>>> with a lot of overhead for the folks spending the money (right, you would
>>>> essentially be paying for my salary, health insurance, university gets a
>>>> cut to put in their coffers, etc. etc.).  There are other mechanisms, that
>>>> short circuit that (like donations) but those also come with tradeoffs
>>>> (like you can’t put ‘deliverables’ on a donation…..but again, ways around
>>>> that one….we can choose to ‘deliver’ things on our own, give credit/thanks
>>>> to the donor that sponsored the effort, and get things out in the world for
>>>> all to see/use…….much like publications coming out of academic grants).
>>>> Whether that’s worth the effort is a strategy question for ORI.
>>>>
>>>> 3.       The donation I was referring to is NOT the MSS $100k.
>>>> AMSAT-NA paid $100k to MSS for the design study, not to VT.  A separate
>>>> donor paid significant $$ to VT for the actual design/integration work.  I
>>>> think roughly $50k-$100k, but am not 100% sure, again I never actually
>>>> charged to that fund and volunteered my time to make room for other
>>>> research faculty and students.  The VT money was through a donation to the
>>>> VT Foundation, which is more like a grant, not a contract, which is why
>>>> ‘legally’ we could do whatever we wanted and didn’t have a formal customer,
>>>> but what we actually did was treat AMSAT as a ‘customer’, and got the $0
>>>> MOU in place between AMSAT/VT to solidify that, so that AMSAT would be
>>>> confident they weren’t wasting a $100k to MSS, and the donor would be
>>>> confident they weren’t wasting their money to VT.  Essentially, the pots of
>>>> money were for the same thing at two organizations, professional engineers
>>>> tackling the problem.  The money to MSS was so that their engineers could
>>>> take the time to consider the impact of such a ‘secondary payload’ to the
>>>> overall Air Force mission and to work with us (right, we asked them to
>>>> increase overall mission scope, which requires risk analysis, engineering
>>>> support, etc.).  The money to VT was so that our research faculty could
>>>> work on the problems as well with focused effort leading toward a PDR level
>>>> design (with significant student support), meaning GEO goals were part of
>>>> our daily work load (and not a side project).  The difference from this to
>>>> #1 above is that faculty were the LEAD researchers with students
>>>> supporting/learning by doing, rather than #1 above where its more like
>>>> students are the lead researchers, with faculty just advising from the side
>>>> (due to time constraints).  The success of the FalconSAT program out of the
>>>> Air Force Academy is a similar example, that’s mostly full time faculty
>>>> (including something like 5 full time research faculty, in addition to the
>>>> academic faculty) driving the train and retaining the ‘institutional
>>>> knowledge’ with students along for the ride.
>>>>
>>>> 4.       The two major outcomes (in my opinion) were 1) Approval from
>>>> Air Force, (because MSS, the bus manufacturer and lead integrator for the
>>>> overall mission, approved) to fly an Amateur Radio secondary payload on an
>>>> Air Force GEO bird and 2) a PDR level design for an Amateur GEO payload
>>>> based on the AstroSDR.
>>>>
>>>> a.       To be clear, when we started the GEO effort, we did not have
>>>> an actual completed design that we just had to ‘fit to their bus.’  We
>>>> started with a lot of ideas and possibilities, and then crystallized all of
>>>> that down into a PDR-level design that was likely to be approved by MSS and
>>>> by extension the Air Force.  For those not directly involved, the final
>>>> ‘moment’ that actually mattered was when Millennium Space Systems was
>>>> conducting a review with the Air Force (much much further along than PDR
>>>> for their mission), and advocated on our behalf that an Amateur Radio
>>>> Secondary payload, added to the mission ot this stage, would provide ‘no
>>>> impact’ to the primary Air Force mission……we were invited to that call as a
>>>> courtesy and spoke 0 words……later we got feedback from the Air Force (via
>>>> MSS) that their response was essentially ‘agreed.’……..With that approval in
>>>> hand, we then held a separate PDR-level review with AMSAT where the
>>>> customers were essentially Marc Franco, Michelle, Jerry Buxton, and Barry
>>>> Baines (and a few others, like Mike Parker from Rincon was there) where we
>>>> presented all the gory details of the design that was approved to fly
>>>> (which, hopefully, should not have had any major surprises given how
>>>> involved they all were).
>>>>
>>>> b.       We were designing in parallel to the MSS study and working
>>>> with them to tailor the design and mission objectives/requirements based on
>>>> their specific constraints for their specific vehicle (like DC power
>>>> budget, thermal management, EMI management, etc.).  VT as an organization,
>>>> had no problems signing NDAs for access to Rincon proprietary info, dealing
>>>> with ITAR issues related to the vehicle itself and the Air Force mission,
>>>> etc. and handling all of that documentation and other material on gov’t
>>>> approved IT systems (something that might be a harder pill to swallow for
>>>> ORI/AMSAT volunteers, though a lot of that may have changed with the ORI CJ
>>>> recent work).  We learned a lot in that process, and the design can
>>>> certainly be adapted if other opportunities present themselves (not glued
>>>> to an MSS vehicle).
>>>>
>>>> c.       One could argue (from the hindsight perspective) that the
>>>> AMSAT money got goal #1 and the VT donation got goal #2.  In reality, not
>>>> quite that clean, both were needed to be successful, and at lot more
>>>> support for the overall project came in various forms from multiple
>>>> organizations including ARRL and FEMA, and multiple volunteers.  Also to be
>>>> clear, it wasn’t ‘ALL VT’ for major outcome #2…… Rincon donated the
>>>> prototype AstroSDR (and would have provided the flight unit), and Mike
>>>> Parker shook loose IRAD dollars so that their engineers could train us up
>>>> and provide engineering support.  Ettus Research donated hardware for
>>>> ground testing.  Marc Franco for was a HUGE supporter in terms of his
>>>> volunteer time and student mentorship for a VT grad student working on the
>>>> overall RF front end design (which included a low element count phased
>>>> array concept so that we could steer the beam as the vehicle potentially
>>>> maneuvered its attitude, we scheduled update calls with him around his
>>>> lunch break at his day job).  Michelle of course was another Huge supporter
>>>> for defining the mission objectives and overall concept, including the Air
>>>> Interface (which was completely open and free of ITAR/Proprietary
>>>> restrictions), Jerry Buxton represented AMSAT (our customer) and we had
>>>> help from many other AMSAT volunteers for areas like control concepts, and
>>>> reset receivers, etc. etc.… Tons of other examples here, point is, it was
>>>> team effort.
>>>>
>>>> d.       Another ‘benefit’ IMHO is understanding how (and
>>>> demonstrating that) a University that’s at least a tiny spec of a small
>>>> part of a corner of the defense and intelligence community (in this
>>>> specific example, VT and the Hume Center, but this could apply to many
>>>> universities), can help divvy up the responsibilities related to
>>>> security/ITAR/ etc. and carve that out from the Open amateur radio
>>>> goals….the value to ORI/AMSAT of this is a potentially wider range of
>>>> launch possibilities / vehicles and a framework for handling that kind of
>>>> material (and again, doesn’t have to be VT….Bob Bruninga at the Naval
>>>> Academy is another example, and I’m sure there are other examples).  The
>>>> ORI CJ recent efforts will go a long way to alleviate a lot of those
>>>> troubles, particularly with cubesats/smallsats, but there may be
>>>> cases/opportunities where things are still proprietary, ITAR, or even
>>>> classified, and Universities with the right infrastructure (and willingness
>>>> to deal with those burdens) can help there.  I occasionally see
>>>> opportunities for more ‘exotic’ orbits, like GTO and HEO, cross my inbox
>>>> that I would love to partner with ORI/AMSAT on to get something into those
>>>> orbits, but usually those opportunities come with ‘strings attached’ where
>>>> the Amateur payload would be secondary to some primary defense/intel
>>>> mission, likely some kind of tech demo to burn down risk for a widget
>>>> destined for greater things one day…….I could see opportunities there
>>>> though where we can get something done for our sponsors while
>>>> simultaneously serving ORI and Amateur Radio goals.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So no, you don’t need a lot more funding to work with VT, but we need
>>>> to be clear about the kind of work we are engaged on and manage
>>>> expectations.  If you want DVB-S2X implemented on a Xynq platform, and all
>>>> published as Open Source, maybe wrapped in RFNoC or OpenCPI style
>>>> frameworks and published on Github…..I would not expect a 1 semester
>>>> undergrad, loosely supervised by a research faculty member in their free
>>>> time to get that done.  That has a much better chance working if we find
>>>> the right grad student focused on DSP/FPGA for their Master’s though, and
>>>> funded through an ORI (or similar) grant/contract, with the right faculty
>>>> advisor.  That work would also fit under a ‘sponsored research’ framework,
>>>> where our actual FPGA experts (research faculty) could spend real time on
>>>> the problem (perhaps with grad student support).  To be clear, just using
>>>> the DVB-S2X on an FPGA project as one example, there are lots of other
>>>> areas where this could apply as well.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> We could also PARTNER to go after funding together, like say in a joint
>>>> proposal to NSF or NASA proposal or maybe a DURIP (which for those who
>>>> aren’t familiar, DURIPs are Defense University Research Instrumentation
>>>> Programs, where we can get DoD to sponsor purchases of equipment that might
>>>> be relevant to their research domains, but a University needs to be
>>>> involved for that among many other requirements).  I work with a PI who
>>>> loves to say that NSF ‘prefers to equally underfund everyone so they don’t
>>>> have any appearance of bias and to keep everyone equally frustrated with
>>>> them’….which to put a more positive spin on that, an ORI lead (as the PI
>>>> institution) multi-university effort (with say 4 or 5 different
>>>> universities as Co-PI institutions, doing different parts of the project,
>>>> and bringing their students to the table, which NSF likes) might actually
>>>> have a decent chance of getting NSF funded (so long as we have a solid
>>>> science case of course).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> That’s all for now! Thanks to the readers that made it this far down! I
>>>> really do appreciate folks taking the time to listen to my opinions on this
>>>> topic.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -Zach, KJ4QLP
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> Research Associate
>>>>
>>>> Aerospace & Ocean Systems Lab
>>>>
>>>> Ted & Karyn Hume Center for National Security & Technology
>>>>
>>>> Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
>>>>
>>>> Work Phone: 540-231-4174
>>>>
>>>> Cell Phone: 540-808-6305
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *From:* Michelle Thompson <mountain.michelle at gmail.com>
>>>> *Sent:* Wednesday, April 7, 2021 1:55 PM
>>>> *To:* Leffke, Zachary <zleffke at vt.edu>
>>>> *Cc:* ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute
>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Ground-station] Sounding Rockets and FPGAs - at a
>>>> University
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thank you Zach, I appreciate the articulate explanation.
>>>>
>>>> I think this means we have to look like, or comply with the
>>>> requirements of, sponsored research from the commercial sector - in order
>>>> to get any student time at all?
>>>>
>>>> The people responsible for the GEO effort a few years ago are at ORI.
>>>>
>>>> We've grown since then, and added expertise, raised 5x the funding, and
>>>> have results.
>>>>
>>>> The donation you describe - is this the $100,000 paid to Millenium
>>>> Space Systems for the engineering review? That worked, because the design
>>>> was (and is, in its present form) useful and of high quality. It was not a
>>>> surprise that it passed the review.
>>>>
>>>> Was this engineering study the only work product?
>>>>
>>>> If so, then is it fair to say that we have to come up with a lot more
>>>> funding in order to work with VT?
>>>>
>>>> -Michelle W5NYV
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Apr 7, 2021 at 9:29 AM Leffke, Zachary via Ground-Station <
>>>> ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Had a sec to get this out and offer my two cents:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Short Version (if you can believe it):  A lot of the faculty that
>>>> engage with (or would like to engage with) ORI at VT are ‘Research Faculty’
>>>> meaning our salaries and our time spent comes from research contract
>>>> dollars and we don’t get any (or at least very little) funding from the
>>>> university itself (0% of my salary comes from student tuition).  This means
>>>> we have to ‘pay the bills’ and have very little time for side projects.  We
>>>> also have to spend a portion of our time on ‘business development’ and for
>>>> those that are willing, volunteering time for student project advising or
>>>> new concepts of interest to us.  I for example also am working on a
>>>> Telescope program for SSA research, low cost phased arrays for various
>>>> projects, helping on this year’s undergrad sounding rocket program, and
>>>> various collections of ad hoc student advising related to cyber physical
>>>> security for aviation systems (Active duty Army cyber officer’s Master’s
>>>> thesis), HF comms for military (ROTC/Cadet project), and helping an AOE/ECE
>>>> senior design team design and test a prototype ‘VT built’ deployable UHF
>>>> antenna for cubesats to name a few…..all currently ‘unfunded’.  My point
>>>> is, I stay busy (and those are just my personal examples, a lot of our
>>>> research faculty do the same thing...one of my colleagues is rebooting High
>>>> Altitude Ballooning as a ‘regular thing’ at VT, and is the new advisor to
>>>> our Ham Radio club, VTARA aka K4KDJ that took over for Bob when he
>>>> retired).  The students do the same thing and volunteer nights and weekends
>>>> frequently on projects of interest to them.  Those volunteer efforts are in
>>>> addition to our sponsored research programs that are ‘100%’ of our work
>>>> day.  If we can structure project efforts like ‘sponsored research’ and
>>>> there is actual funding for research faculty time and student time (as
>>>> undergrad wage researchers and/or graduate research assistants) than we can
>>>> actually charge a percentage of our time to the project and focus.  This
>>>> also gets senior University ‘management’ off our backs, because at the end
>>>> of the day, they are looking at bottom dollar ‘research expenditure’
>>>> numbers (from the university’s perspective, its our ACADEMIC departments
>>>> that are responsible for student engagement/development, and the RESEARCH
>>>> groups might engage with students which is all well and good, but they want
>>>> to see research dollars moving through the university).  Moving ORI
>>>> projects from the ‘volunteer time’ category to the ‘sponsored research’
>>>> category will go a long way to ‘getting real work done.’  Having to
>>>> bid/compete for work, student internships, etc. are all fair game and part
>>>> of our ‘normal business’ operations.  Having hard deadlines, contract
>>>> deliverables, reviews, reports, etc. are all good things that keep us
>>>> focused on the task at hand (so long as there is appropriate funding to
>>>> support working towards those goals).  I’m not saying that ORI or ARDC
>>>> specifically needs to cough up money, and we can partner together on larger
>>>> efforts/proposals to get the funding (like the NSF dollars Michelle
>>>> mentioned, or possible DURIP style efforts), but that would need to fit in
>>>> the framework of our business development efforts where we asses things
>>>> like ‘probability of win’ (where NSF and DARPA for example are notoriously
>>>> low Pwin historically) to make sure its worth the time invested to go after
>>>> the work.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Oversimplified summary:  Money talks, and if we can fund our time
>>>> (research faculty and students) to focus on research topics where ORI is
>>>> the ‘customer’ (or partner for larger efforts) there will be significantly
>>>> larger return on investment compared to volunteer side project efforts
>>>> (where you are effectively banking on the supervisor ‘caring’ about your
>>>> project and having available time).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> That’s my quick two cents (maybe obvious), keep reading for longer
>>>> version, with an example at the end of ‘what worked’ from a partnership
>>>> perspective:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Maybe obvious, but one item I’ll go ahead and mention for the ‘what
>>>> works’ column is funding.  For those that don’t know me I am ‘Research
>>>> Faculty’ at VT and work in a Research Center called the Hume Center, which
>>>> is very different organizationally than academic or tenure track faculty.
>>>> For me (and I suspect many others) we are ‘soft money’ researchers meaning
>>>> we are funded almost entirely by research contracts (and occasionally
>>>> grants) which we refer to a ‘sponsored research’.  This is in contrast to
>>>> academic faculty that are ‘hard money’ funded through the University
>>>> directly (for example, 0% of my salary comes from student tuition
>>>> dollars).  These contracts come with deadlines, deliverables, reviews, and
>>>> occasionally published papers (that we aren’t paid for but is an important
>>>> thing for academia, particularly our grad students) and is very different
>>>> than most ‘academic grants’ that come with few strings attached.  We bill
>>>> according to ‘Level of Effort’ which boils down to what percentage of our
>>>> time we spend on the various programs.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What this ultimately means is that we have very little time for ‘side
>>>> projects’ because we are constantly under the gun to meet the contract
>>>> deliverables.  For me personally, most of my ‘student supervision’ time is
>>>> volunteer and I spend a lot of nights and weekends trying to work on new
>>>> research areas that are not currently funded.  All of the sounding rocket
>>>> work I’ve done (and commented on this list about in the past) was all
>>>> volunteer effort for me personally (yes it’s a NASA program, managed
>>>> through Colorado Space Grant, and the students have a budget from various
>>>> non-NASA sponsors to buy our seat on the rocket and the payload components,
>>>> but my time for involvement is 0% funded).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The point of the above is to say, in order to get ‘real work’ done, the
>>>> best way to get focused attention is to turn it into a ‘sponsored research’
>>>> style program.  We can try supervising the occasional ‘side project’ (like
>>>> supervising an undergrad or two who might be doing an independent study to
>>>> analyze a particular problem), but it will always be a ‘side project’ if
>>>> its unfunded and our attention will be subject to the ebb and flow of the
>>>> sponsored programs deliverables that actually pay the bills.  This is why I
>>>> like Bruce’s comments/suggestions about ORI flipping things around and
>>>> ‘owning’ the process.  If we have funding to supervise specific research
>>>> sponsored by ORI (perhaps funded by ARDC grants, or other sources like NSF,
>>>> etc.) we can treat it like a sponsored research program, and actually focus
>>>> faculty time on it.  Meeting deadlines, doing reviews, etc. are all GOOD
>>>> pressure that keep us engaged.  Making the process competitive is also
>>>> good, and we are totally fine having to ‘compete’ for work through research
>>>> proposals and such.  If ORI put out something akin to an RFI/RFP that we
>>>> then had to bid for, that would fit right in with our ‘normal business’.
>>>> The contracting part of it (which I am NOT an expert in) can be handled a
>>>> couple ways, some of which offer more ‘bang for the buck’ for the sponsor
>>>> (grants through the VT Foundation for example).  We can also act as
>>>> partners with ORI and propose for other projects where the shape of things
>>>> might look like ORI as the prime contractor with VT as a sub-contractor, or
>>>> with both acting as ‘equal partners’ would just depend on what we were
>>>> proposing and to who.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> As an example, there was the GEO effort a few years back with AMSAT-NA
>>>> (there is a lot to potentially discuss here, but I’m focusing on the
>>>> ‘getting stuff done’ partnership side of things, not the mission itself).
>>>> In that scenario, we received a donation with the ultimate goal of getting
>>>> approval to fly an Amateur payload on an experimental Air Force satellite.
>>>> We used the donation to fund research faculty member time (although
>>>> technically, all of my personal time on GEO was volunteer effort…I never
>>>> charged to that fund) and student time (as wage researchers / graduate
>>>> research assistants) to actually work directly with the Air Force and the
>>>> satellite manufacturer (Millennium).  The team was very diverse in that we
>>>> had RF engineers, electrical engineers (focusing on things like power),
>>>> AOE/ME folks (doing mechanical/thermal/launch analyses), systems engineers,
>>>> etc.  We had weekly meetings with the Air Force and AMSAT as well as
>>>> internal meetings for design work, had to navigate the
>>>> restricted/unrestricted nature of the project (some stuff ITAR because its
>>>> Air Force, some stuff proprietary because its Millennium), lots of systems
>>>> engineering work, did thermal, mechanical, and electrical work, RF And
>>>> comms work with AMSAT (mostly Michelle, Marc Franco, Jerry Buxton, and Mike
>>>> Parker at Rincon that donated the AstroSDR that was the core of the design)
>>>> on the Air interface side of things (all public info), had multiple
>>>> reviews, attended conferences to talk about the project and drum up support
>>>> (GNU Radio and AMSAT Symposium)…….ultimately resulting in approval to build
>>>> a payload that met all of the interface requirements to a level approved by
>>>> the Air Force and a PDR level design (we were even to the point of talking
>>>> integration schedules and when people would travel from Va to Ca to
>>>> integrate the payload).  We had to answer to AMSAT (a 501-C3, although not
>>>> legally, we had a $0 MOU in place, but obviously AMSAT is the ‘customer’ in
>>>> this case from VT’s perspective), the Air Force (US Gov’t / DoD),
>>>> Millennium Space Systems (company), and Rincon Research .  In that case we
>>>> were successful because of the funding.  That was a fairly large effort
>>>> with lots of organizational complexities, but from my point of view it
>>>> worked really well because there was funding (thanks entirely to the donor)
>>>> for our folks to focus on the task at hand.  Obviously the overall program
>>>> didn’t pan out (for reasons I would argue were outside of AMSAT / VT’s
>>>> control….different conversation), but for the specific task we were paid
>>>> for (PDR design, get the thumbs up from AF/MSS), we were successful.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> As always, my two cents on the topic (other VT folks might have
>>>> different perspectives).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -Zach, KJ4QLP
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> Research Associate
>>>>
>>>> Aerospace & Ocean Systems Lab
>>>>
>>>> Ted & Karyn Hume Center for National Security & Technology
>>>>
>>>> Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
>>>>
>>>> Work Phone: 540-231-4174
>>>>
>>>> Cell Phone: 540-808-6305
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *From:* Ground-Station <
>>>> ground-station-bounces at lists.openresearch.institute> *On Behalf Of *Michelle
>>>> Thompson via Ground-Station
>>>> *Sent:* Monday, April 5, 2021 3:33 PM
>>>> *To:* Thomas Savarino <thomas.savarino at mac.com>
>>>> *Cc:* Michelle Thompson via Ground-Station <
>>>> ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute>
>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Ground-station] Sounding Rockets and FPGAs - at a
>>>> University
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Where are the successful industry-university-opensource partnerships?
>>>> It is definitely not all bad news or misunderstandings. It's really
>>>> difficult to pull off collaborations given the very different goals and
>>>> methods of the (at least) three communities involved. Getting a better fit
>>>> between communities and getting better results does mean looking at what
>>>> did or did not work.
>>>>
>>>> What does work?
>>>>
>>>> Stanford, MIT, VT, and many other schools are way ahead of the game and
>>>> are, or have recently been, innovative in getting broad involvement behind
>>>> student work. Some of this appears to be 1) firmly enabling fundamental
>>>> research topics and 2) overfunding to the point where research risks can be
>>>> tolerated and 3) having a pipeline ready for productized
>>>> proprietary/secret work in order to keep the funding coming in.
>>>>
>>>> None of these programs are perfect. But, relatively small
>>>> investments have resulted in enormous impact and results.
>>>>
>>>> With the potential for many tens of billions of dollars of increased
>>>> spending on NSF coming up rapidly in the US Congress, it seems that working
>>>> well with "The Academy" remains and will be a very important option. Even
>>>> for smaller operations like ORI. Any increase in spending is going to go
>>>> through all of the many traditional mechanisms, such as NSF and NASA. These
>>>> are mechanisms that have produced an enormous quantity of work that, in
>>>> most cases, can be read and used by us for free. There's no way we can do
>>>> what we do without that body of work.
>>>>
>>>> With the educational mission becoming more and more important to the
>>>> amateur radio service (and to the foundations that can fund ambitious work)
>>>> then it's going to be up to us to learn how to fit in and adapt, when
>>>> pursuing this sort of thing. That means understanding what the fundamental
>>>> research topics of a particular institution (or professor) are. Sometimes
>>>> this is easy to figure out, and sometimes it is not!
>>>>
>>>> This is just part of the landscape and it's just part of what we do. We
>>>> can work on forward error correction and communications systems entirely
>>>> apart from academia, conferences, seminars, and student projects.
>>>>
>>>> I believe that there's so much potential mutual benefit possible with
>>>> "big education", that there's an obligation to keep at it. The reason I'm
>>>> talking about it on the list and asking for feedback and sorting through
>>>> how this relates to wider open source work is to get our volunteers the
>>>> best possible opportunities.
>>>>
>>>> -Michelle W5NYV
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Apr 5, 2021 at 11:05 AM Michelle Thompson <
>>>> mountain.michelle at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> This raises a point that keeps coming up over the years. And you
>>>> inspire consideration about another issue.
>>>>
>>>> There's a huge amount of work/results in closed literature. Usually due
>>>> to national security concerns.
>>>>
>>>> Part of the problem in doing open source work is running into people
>>>> and volunteers that know something can be done, but they can't cite the
>>>> source and do not feel like they can describe it. Missiles and rockets are
>>>> certainly in this category.
>>>>
>>>> There has to be something that we can verify and test with the really
>>>> remarkable work we are doing. We have some very good ideas identified so
>>>> far. Let's keep trying to come up with ideas and clarify them as best we
>>>> can.
>>>>
>>>> Based on what we've talked about, it seems that we have to "market" our
>>>> ideas better to schools in order to get them to care. It's on us to make it
>>>> "cool" enough for students to select. I'm completely biased and all-in on
>>>> what we do, but full time people like me, and a 501(c)(3), and funding,
>>>> have not been enough in the recent past to be "picked". I am actively
>>>> trying to up the game here, any way I can, to get the work done and people
>>>> educated. It's my fault for not knowing how to do this in a way that gets
>>>> us recognized and engaged.
>>>>
>>>> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>>>>
>>>> There's another subject here, and it needs to be brought up.
>>>>
>>>> Working things out from first principles, when it's necessary, can only
>>>> be done in practice by people with the time, talent, and treasure
>>>> necessary. In other words, by people with relative privilege. Or, by people
>>>> that accept the burden and try anyway. I can think of several active
>>>> projects in this category, some of which we support.
>>>>
>>>> And this sort of thing harshly limits the promise of open source work
>>>> in two ways. 1) we sometimes really do need to liberate closed work and
>>>> this is uncomfortable and requires some brass body parts and 2) it can most
>>>> easily be done by people with economic privilege.
>>>>
>>>> This brings up how to pay for open source work. Not just for creation,
>>>> but for sustaining engineering.
>>>>
>>>> I can try and describe this with words, but this image is better:
>>>>
>>>> https://xkcd.com/2347/
>>>>
>>>> We have to acknowledge this. I am not sure that we can address it, but
>>>> it's a really big problem. If we can't solve it, then we have to accept
>>>> some very unhappy limitations on open source work.
>>>>
>>>> We know and understand that all the major amatuer radio philanthropic
>>>> organizations (in general) decline to pay overhead and salaries. They will
>>>> pay for materials, parts, boards, and tools. But, they have rejected paying
>>>> for overhead or salaries. Oddly, they will fund scholarships. The
>>>> scholarship economy, the scholarship marketing movement, and scholarship
>>>> funds are all about overhead and salary. And, privilege.
>>>>
>>>> First, scholarships fund the administration of schools. The reason we
>>>> have a scholarship economy is because overhead and administrative costs are
>>>> the things that have caused tuition to rise so sharply in the United
>>>> States. This is a problem almost unique to the United States, and I
>>>> apologize to readers outside of the US where this may not apply.
>>>>
>>>> Second, if you only fund college scholarships, and won't directly pay
>>>> people to do open source work, then it's decided that the fund will support
>>>> a system that filters out a huge number of talented people. As an extremely
>>>> well-educated person, who went to an elite university, I am here to tell
>>>> you that only funding college scholarships to "get technical work done"
>>>> really does contribute to a homogenous tech scene. Technology is sexist,
>>>> racist, and bigoted. If you are going "what?!" or want or need a good
>>>> introduction to this problem, then
>>>> https://www.npr.org/2019/03/17/704209639/caroline-criado-perez-on-data-bias-and-invisible-women
>>>> is a great start.
>>>>
>>>> Philanthropic organizations that want to change the way things work on
>>>> the ground, for real people, have to rethink their approach. If we only
>>>> fund university scholarships and molecules (PCBs, components, etc) we are
>>>> missing  almost all the leverage.
>>>>
>>>> I assert that if scholarships can be funded, then so can open source
>>>> worker salaries. Open source worker salaries result in same or better civic
>>>> good than scholarships. Direct payments to vetted workers might even be
>>>> more efficient and will result in better economic outcomes to open source
>>>> work. People directly affected by bad tech done by homogenous commercial
>>>> interests? They are the very best people to pay to produce better work.
>>>>
>>>> Why is there resistance to paying for overhead and salaries?
>>>>
>>>> Because of a real and legitimate concern about waste and laziness and
>>>> fraud and misunderstandings and completely different expectations and value
>>>> systems.
>>>>
>>>> I'll give one example in the category of the work that is quite often
>>>> paid for now, that was a complete and total mismatch.
>>>>
>>>> I was and am involved with an engineering project at a University,
>>>> involving several large corporate partners. They had a certification
>>>> program through a major online education app. This was a big open source
>>>> effort. There was a paid (employed!) open source evangelist, traction with
>>>> volume production for the hardware, and lots of truly great
>>>> code/applications/creativity/Makers etc.
>>>>
>>>> When it came time to produce the instruction - that's when we had a big
>>>> problem. These were classes that people were going to take online for a
>>>> *certification* from a university. The deal was two professors, with full
>>>> support of the university, took the entire amount of money to produce the
>>>> educational content and... the money disappeared into the University. No
>>>> content was produced. After an appropriate amount of time for content to
>>>> appear, inquiries were made.
>>>>
>>>> Nothing could be done.
>>>>
>>>> Now, this was not what was supposed to happen. There was a contract,
>>>> there were expectations, multiple meetings, lists, posts, commitments,
>>>> community momentum, a contract from the online supplier, etc.
>>>>
>>>> The professors produced brief 1-minute or so introductions for the 40
>>>> class sessions. They didn't provide expected instruction, they did not
>>>> review anything, and they did not produce content themselves. Getting email
>>>> answered was hard. They honestly thought they had provided full value.
>>>>
>>>> They took the entire amount for the entire program and expressed
>>>> genuine surprise that there was any unhappiness at all. It was about 40
>>>> minutes total content for a very large amount of money. This was "they way
>>>> it was done". Ranks were closed.
>>>>
>>>> But, the show really had to go one. So, volunteers organized by the
>>>> project employee came up with the contracted educational content, got A/V
>>>> support at additional cost, edited the classes, dealt with the educational
>>>> content distributor's many requirements, handled the student forum, handled
>>>> the customer service forum, did the labs, and updated the content as the
>>>> platform and the framework used rapidly changed. For a while. With no
>>>> compensation, because the entire amount for all of this work was consumed
>>>> by the university up front.
>>>>
>>>> The only option to enforce some sort of sharing of the money was to
>>>> sue.
>>>>
>>>> That option was not pursued. It was politically impossible for an
>>>> industry-backed and industry-funded consortium to sue a university where
>>>> three of the board members had graduated from. Total non-starter.
>>>>
>>>> The staff member and volunteer corps on this project were rapidly
>>>> burned out. The people that were really good at this work, and wanted the
>>>> project to continue, moved quickly away. No project like this is planned
>>>> now or for the future. The university doesn't understand why the
>>>> "community" isn't "more forthcoming" with "efforts". Well, it's because
>>>> they all remember what happened.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So, yes. There's reasons for declining to fund "overhead" and
>>>> "salaries" when stories like this are not uncommon. I know many of you
>>>> reading this have very similar stories of your own.
>>>>
>>>> However, a blanket prohibition hits that team in Nebraska (xkcd) pretty
>>>> hard. They can't get the justice of compensation for their work. Yes, the
>>>> project was given/published as a gift. But, as we know, a gift economy only
>>>> works when there is reciprocity of at least respect, if not value. Lacking
>>>> both, it collapses over time.
>>>>
>>>> If we want open source work to be enduring, then we have to start
>>>> seriously considering paying people to do the work, instead of assuming
>>>> only rich educated people will spend literally years of their lives putting
>>>> up with the static to make great things happen. All endeavors succeed or
>>>> fail based on how they can scale. We have a scaling problem in open source,
>>>> and in open source funding, and none of us are immune from it. One of the
>>>> ways we can solve it is "pay the people that can do the work".
>>>>
>>>> Larger foundations that have the money, and need to spend it, have a
>>>> unique opportunity here to fundamentally change the world. Yes, work on
>>>> university projects. But, please, seriously consider paying open source
>>>> workers directly. There are so many people that would do this full time if
>>>> they could. They've said so. They are not hard to find. A contract for 1-5
>>>> years for specific deliverables is an easy legal document. The benefits are
>>>> enormous. Right now, we have dozens of really amazing open source workers
>>>> begging for dozens of dollars on Patreon and Kickstarter. Philanthropic
>>>> organizations could fund all this work, today. That's literally just the
>>>> tip of the iceberg. It's only the most privileged and most able open source
>>>> workers that have set these sorts of things up.
>>>>
>>>> Back to sounding rockets - I'm going to move forward with some
>>>> discussions as soon as some school deadlines are done. I am hoping we can
>>>> take advantage of both Research and Development opportunities.
>>>>
>>>> More soon,
>>>> -Michelle W5NYV
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Apr 4, 2021 at 8:13 PM Thomas Savarino via Ground-Station <
>>>> ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I think that some meaningful work of integrating navigation and
>>>> communication is possible here.  I got the idea from some email where
>>>> someone said something about using the sounding rocket behavior for
>>>> something.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I had two ideas for experiments
>>>>
>>>> 1. Attach cheap accelerometers to crystal frequency sources and measure
>>>> the frequency drifts during rapid accelerations. This measurement could
>>>> provide an error signal somehow to correct the main clock frequency in a
>>>> system.
>>>>
>>>> 2. It might be combined with something else, maybe a 3DOF Inertial
>>>> measurement unit that would measure accelerations and maybe autocorrect
>>>> Doppler shifts that occur during a flight.
>>>>
>>>> I suspect that these ideas are pretty old in some areas, like ballistic
>>>> missiles, but getting it to work wouldn’t be that easy.
>>>>
>>>> I think that some meaningful work of integrating navigation and
>>>> communication is possible here.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So, there you go.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Best
>>>>
>>>> S
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Apr 4, 2021, at 2:47 PM, Alex Wege via Ground-Station <
>>>> ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> 
>>>>
>>>> >>"Adapting to harsh and changing conditions quickly and reliably is a
>>>> big systems challenge for us. Is a sounding rocket the right entry point to
>>>> test this sort of work?"
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I think this is an awesome idea! As a recent graduate of the University
>>>> of Minnesota rocketry team I can tell you it's difficult to build a perfect
>>>> telemetry system for a rocket -- especially supersonic ones.
>>>>
>>>> They might even appreciate just running some adaptive coding and FEC
>>>> blocks like in DVB-S2 to improve link stability (assuming they ran into
>>>> similar issues).
>>>>
>>>> That would also be an opportunity to test out (by proxy) the dynamics
>>>> of our adaptive coding system in a stressful environment.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On a less related note, I think our system would be perfectly suited
>>>> for any high altitude ballooning teams to experiment with -- that would be
>>>> really cool to see.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -KE0RYT
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Apr 4, 2021 at 11:32 AM Jay Francis via Ground-Station <
>>>> ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Michelle Thompson via Ground-Station wrote on 4/4/21 10:39 AM:
>>>> > If we were to propose an FPGA experiment on a sounding rocket (this
>>>> is
>>>> > with a University), what would be the best experiment?
>>>> It's probably easier to get FCC STA licenses for sounding rocket
>>>> launches than orbital due to the limited duration.  I've done it a
>>>> couple times now for S-Band telemetry on vehicles.  This could be a way
>>>> to test very experimental modulation/protocols that might not be
>>>> approved for orbital operation.
>>>>
>>>> Flight testing deployment of very small hardware (similar to Ambasat
>>>> size or smaller) may also be possible since there's no orbital debris
>>>> tracking issues.  It could be interesting to have a sounding rocket
>>>> deployment mechanism to test swarms of small networked "satellites".
>>>>
>>>> Experiments flown on sounding rockets aren't necessarily only activated
>>>> in space (unlike cubesats).  They can be designed to run through the
>>>> whole flight.
>>>>
>>>> The flight environment (acceleration, shock and vibe) of most sounding
>>>> rockets is a bit harsher than an orbital launch - be prepared for that,
>>>> or take advantage of it :-)
>>>>
>>>> --Jay, KA1PQK
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Bruce Perens - CEO at stealth startup. I'll tell you what it is
>>> eventually :-)
>>>
>>
>
> --
> Bruce Perens - CEO at stealth startup. I'll tell you what it is eventually
> :-)
>
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