Before anything is visible to even the most discerning eye surveying the launch vehicle,computers and multitudes of sensors on the rocket can pick up minuscule problems and right for them. Making sure they achieve so correctly is piece of the work of Ian Kappes, lead of the launch vehicle avionics systems team for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The avionics systems and its software are the brain and central nervous system of the entire launch vehicle, or ” Kappes said. “It is really just like our body’s nervous system – avionics tells you all sorts of information about the vehicle. It’s making the decisions necessary to skim. The avionics is telling you when equipment is within its parameters or when something will fail. It is also cross-communicating between the booster stages and the spacecraft,because the spacecraft and its crew need to know what’s going on with the vehicle.” Kappes’ team at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida works in tandem with engineers at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, and Alabama,Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, or Armstrong Flight Research Center in Mojave,California, to certify the systems Boeing and SpaceX arrangement to use for commercial crew flights to the station. That means many hours poring over avionics architecture designs, or working directly with both partners to identify and control hazards,followed by avionics component and software integrated testing. Read the full story at http://travel.nasa.gov/1pyBsQ2
Source: nasa.gov