Posted: 09/14/2014 12:01:00 AM MDT
HIGHLANDS RANCH - This is the story of a boy who dreamed of being an astronaut who now shoots rockets into space for NASA.
In the late 1990s, Jerry Larson started Up Aerospace in his Highlands Ranch garage with the goal of inspiring high school and middle school kids to embrace science.
On Monday, Up was one of four U.S. companies picked for the latest round of contracts for NASA's Flight Opportunities program. This award means experiments from around the globe will ride into space aboard an Up Aerospace rocket, with the goal of providing data for future aerospace development.
Early days
At age 9, Larson was enraptured by the iconic television images of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon. He dreamed of being an astronaut, spending his time building model rockets - one of which is perched atop a filing cabinet in his office.
This love of space and science led him to an aerospace engineering degree from the University of Washington and a career with Lockheed Martin.
Yet, while working on such high-profile projects as the U.S. Space Shuttle, Larson held a vision for a company that would harness that wide-eyed sense of wonderment he felt while watching the first moon walk in 1969.
In 1997, Larson came up with the idea for Up Aerospace.
'NASA used to provide flights once a year for a university, and they let the universities compete and then there'd be one winner. I always thought that was unfortunate,' Larson said. 'Why can't they all win? That's where the idea for this company originally came up.'
He's proud that more than 4,000 students, some as young as sixth-graders, participated in the program.
'Every one of those students who have flown something on our vehicles want to be rocket scientists and do anything that has to do with the space program,' he said.
Up Aerospace was incorporated in Colorado in 2004, the same year Larson and Go Fast Energy launched the first amateur rocket beyond the official boundary of space - the Kármán line, 62 miles above Earth's sea level.
Flight opportunities
Larson soon took the company in a slightly different direction, moving into providing flight services for companies that wanted to test payloads in space.
Up Aerospace's first launch, on Sept. 26, 2006, did not go well.
'At Mach 4, we lost control,' he said. 'But you learn from your mistakes, like any good scientist, and try, try again.'
Up tried again in April 2007 with a successful launch from Spaceport America, just west of the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. As Up's rocket launch and recovery abilities were increasingly confirmed, Larson began looking for new opportunities.
In 2011, NASA debuted the Flight Opportunities program, which sends experiments to space or near-space aboard commercial vehicles. Larson applied, and Up was awarded one of the initial contracts.
The NASA testing process is a chicken-and-egg conundrum: Technologies must be tested and perform in space before consideration for NASA development, but these technologies have to be in space to be fully tested.
Scientists can simulate space-like climate on Earth, but achieving zero-gravity is not possible. Flight Opportunities allows for these emerging technologies to be proved before major investment takes place.
It's all designed to be a cost-effective and efficient method for initial testing and data collection, explained NASA Flight Opportunities project engineer Paul De Leon.
'If we didn't have these companies, like Up Aerospace, flying these payloads, one option would be to qualify the technology on the International Space Station,' he said. 'This is very expensive, and it can take up to 18 months (to get launched). With Up Aerospace, we can have a payload up in six months.'
Up Aerospace flights take about 15 minutes, with about 3 to 3½ minutes spent in zero gravity, which provides a perfect environment to run experiments. Better, even, than the International Space Station, Larson said.
'(Our rocket) doesn't have astronauts bouncing off the walls. ISS has life-support equipment and other things that are vibrating and make it not the best weightless environment,' he said. 'These experiments can have a real pure microgravity environment for 3½ minutes, which is an eternity when you're floating in space.'
If you build it ...
Larson and son Eric, Up Aerospace's only full-time employees, design the rockets and fabricate the majority of the spacecraft's parts in a Highlands Ranch lab. They also test the payloads - experiments loaded into cylindrical containers about 1 foot high.
The cylinders - as many as seven per flight - stack into the rocket shaft, similar to how batteries stack into a flashlight chamber.
The assembled rockets, launched about 30 miles from Spaceport America, weigh about 800 pounds, according to Larson.
'For safety reasons, we shoot it onto White Sands Missile Range. They give us a target point and that's what we shoot at,' Larson explained.
Once the wind is determined and launch trajectory is set, it's go time.
And the excitement among Up launch crew and NASA representatives is palpable. Groups with an experiment on board attend, champing at the bit to get their returned-to-Earth experiments.
'Everyone who has a stake in the launch is on site,' Larson said. 'They're excited about it, asking 'Did it work?' They even take a look at their data on the day of launch.'
Only technologies that have future NASA space mission potential are accepted for Flight Opportunities testing.
Getting results
Universities and companies that send their experiments into space ride for free but must agree to share their data with NASA as the technology matures, De Leon said.
'This is real meaningful science,' Larson said. 'It's enabling a lot more experimentation that normally would not be there.'
This approach can inspire universities and students to think bigger when planning experiments, said professor Scott Palo, associate dean for research at the University of Colorado's College of Engineering and Applied Science.
'It opens the mind to thinking differently,' he said. 'It gives students an opportunity to explore ideas they wouldn't otherwise explore and get data back, which is really exciting.'
Experiments that succeed also might find commercial application. For example, a recent Up mission tested Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast technology, or ADS-B, that will replace the 'black box' transponders in all commercial aircraft by 2020.
Up Aerospace's current mission, its third for NASA, is set for Oct. 20 and will carry five experiments. Its payload includes a sun sensor from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a radiation-tolerant computer system from Montana State University.
It's all very high-level science. Yet, when all is said and done, it's just really cool to shoot things into space, right?
'Yeah. I would have never guessed that I would have the opportunity to do something like this,' Larson said. 'We have a blast. It's hard. It's long hours, but it's really fun.'
Laura Keeney: 303-954-1337, lkeeney@denverpost.com or http://ift.tt/1veBSJs Entities 0 Name: Larson Count: 15 1 Name: NASA Count: 12 2 Name: U.S. Count: 2 3 Name: Spaceport America Count: 2 4 Name: Earth Count: 2 5 Name: Jerry Larson Count: 1 6 Name: White Sands Count: 1 7 Name: ISS Count: 1 8 Name: Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast Count: 1 9 Name: Highlands Ranch Count: 1 10 Name: New Mexico Count: 1 11 Name: Paul De Leon Count: 1 12 Name: Kármán Count: 1 13 Name: Go Fast Energy Count: 1 14 Name: Scott Palo Count: 1 15 Name: Laura Keeney Count: 1 16 Name: moon Count: 1 17 Name: University of Colorado 's College of Engineering and Applied Science Count: 1 18 Name: Mach Count: 1 19 Name: De Leon Count: 1 20 Name: University of Washington Count: 1 21 Name: Colorado Count: 1 22 Name: Neil Armstrong Count: 1 23 Name: Lockheed Martin Count: 1 24 Name: Montana State University Count: 1 25 Name: ADS-B Count: 1 26 Name: Eric Count: 1 27 Name: Aldrin Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/X8dVGI Title: NASA Coverage Set for Fourth SpaceX Mission to Space Station Description: The fourth SpaceX cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract is scheduled to launch Saturday, Sept. 20, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
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