Special thanks to Nick Davis who led the effort for a METECS team entry at the Johnson Space Center Chili Cook-off this year. There was even a special appearance by “Chili-bot” to stir the pot!
Also a thank you to the many employees and family members that helped contribute to a great day.
We know that the past year has been a turbulent one for many people, but we are celebrating our accomplishments in 2021 and the many opportunities for 2022. We are very grateful for our employees, our customers, and our exciting work and we are looking forward to a great new year.
The METECS team is responsible for building the lunar surface model for lander and rover simulations supporting the Artemis program, such as the NASA Exploration Systems Simulations (NExSyS) team. Starting with digital elevation models from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) our team then adds sub-resolution features to the terrain, such as rocks and craters. We also add in contact dynamics to support interaction between vehicles (such as rovers and landers) against this terrain. Using these high-fidelity terrain models, NASA is able to conduct studies such as lighting and navigation studies which help to characterize the challenges astronauts will face when we return to the Lunar surface!
There have been many recent demos of these lunar simulation capabilities to NASA management as well as other agencies such as JAXA. Congratulations to the METECS employees who have worked to move expand and demo these capabilities
The METECS team supported NASA’s S.U.I.T.S. (Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students) project, as a part of NASA’s Artemis education outreach program. The 2021 challenge proved difficult for students and faculty alike due to on-site access restrictions and limitations to network resources. METECS worked directly with teams to gather their latest source, compile and deploy to their respective HoloLens and Leap Motion AR devices. The team additionally came up with innovative solutions to work with network limitations on test day and devised IoT-like deployments to serve student required data streams with minimal to no re-configuration. Furthermore, METECS has diligently documented and analyzed anomalies from the prior year, and has begun rearchitecting the telemetry stream and network to support multiple teams in a cost-effective manner.
You can learn more about the NASA SUITS project here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SNCetZitZE
NASA has awarded METECS a contract to provide Simulation and Advanced Software Services (SASS) to the Engineering Directorate at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The SASS contract has a potential value of $100M over a base period of five years. Work under the contract will include support for the International Space Station, Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, Commercial Crew, Gateway and Artemis programs.
“We are looking forward to working with our team members Harmony Lane Studios, Spoonbill, VEDO Systems, and Tietronix Software to support NASA’s human space program over the next five years with the SASS contract,” said John MacLean, founder and president of METECS. “The advanced software and simulations we provide will be essential to NASA’s missions in low-earth orbit, return to the moon and deep-space exploration.”
This effort will include spacecraft systems engineering; developing and analyzing Trick-based simulations of space robotics, human biomechanics, Guidance Navigation and Control, vehicle subsystems, docking and berthing systems, and human-in-the-loop training systems; developing and deploying both ground and space-based custom software for avionics integration and test, Core Flight Software, embedded systems, advanced robotics, next generation human-computer interfaces, autonomous logistics, machine learning, augmented reality and virtual environments.
METECS employees apply engineering and advanced technologies every day to provide creative solutions to NASA and the agriculture, construction, and energy industries.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-contract-in-support-of-simulation-model-development
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