Congratulations to the NASA employees listed on the recently released “NASA Inventors Hall of Fame”. We at METECS are extremely excited to see two NASA associates that we work closely with included on this very exclusive list of only 32 inventors in NASA’s history! Congratulations to Pat Fink and Phong Ngo. We are happy to see them recognized for their great contributions to their field and to NASA.

Patrick Fink: https://technology.nasa.gov/ihof/inventors.php#Patrick-Fink
Phong Ngo: https://technology.nasa.gov/ihof/#Phong-Ngo

You can read more about the NASA Inventors Hall of Fame at https://technology.nasa.gov/ihof/

METECS employee, Nicholas Davis has a couple big-hearted kids. During the stay at home order, Sophomore Michelle Davis and eighth grader Nicholas Davis both decided to combine skills to help their community. Using a 3D printer and a sewing machine, Michelle and Nicholas are making masks for frontline workers. The masks were specially designed and handmade, paired with flexible straps that relieve tension on the ears.

“It makes us feel very happy that we can help the people that help us because they risk their lives every day to keep our community safe and healthy,” said Michelle.

By working hard, both kids have made more than a combined 40 masks and 100 ear-relief straps all while balancing their schoolwork.

Great Job, Michelle and Nicholas!

https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/league-city-siblings-combine-special-talents-to-make-mask-for-frontline-workers/285-80ae9ee5-e61d-4abf-a41c-16d1a189d66c

Video Interview:

Clear Creek ISD siblings make masks & ear-relief straps for first responders, frontline healthcare workers

METECS is excited to see the new Falcon booster now at Space Center Houston.  Our team has been involved with simulation and graphics integration of the SpaceX Dragon vehicle within our ISS simulations, which is trained in NASA Space Station Training Facility (SSTF) and many other NASA facilities.

Learn more about the exhibit:
https://spacecenter.org/video-spacex-unveiling-getting-close/

METECS was proud to sponsor the Goforth Elementary School’s robotics team in the 2019 Vex IQ challenge.

Read more about the Vex IQ Challenge! https://www.robotevents.com/robot-competitions/vex-iq-challenge

METECS, a recognized leader in virtual reality simulation, debuted a new Tulsamerican B-24 exhibit and virtual reality experience on December 17^th, 2019, the 75^th Anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge.  The dedication ceremony included an in-depth historical presentation on the Tulsamerican’s heroic crew, words of inspiration from the family of the crew, a moment of silence for the lost crew members, a ribbon cutting ceremony with the media and a chance to relive the B-24’s last flight in a permanent virtual reality viewing station.

As part of President Roosevelt’s “Arsenal of Democracy” to aid WWII efforts, Tulsa was selected as the new location of a Douglas plant.  Employees of the Douglas-Tulsa plant bought enough war bonds to cover the cost of the last B-24 built in Tulsa, and so dubbed it The Tulsamerican.  The Tulsamerican fought in Europe, it’s last mission was on December 17, 1944 where it was attacked and crashed.  It currently rests in the Adriatic Sea off the coast of Croatia.
Teaser Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3uSUwIqt_4&feature=emb_logo

Fox News 23
https://www.fox23.com/news/partial-life-size-replica-wwii-bomber-is-open-tulsa-air-space-museum/WNLBHJSO5PVWCXWHYKDNBLG7RY/?_website=cmg-tv-10100

Tulsa World
https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/shouldn-t-be-forgotten-tulsa-air-and-space-museum-dedicates/article_1272d22e-2527-5d2d-8bee-a648b7e35a2a.html

Our very own Jonathan Brandenburg made a presentation on December 9th regarding the implementation of cFS for FreeRTOS. FreeRTOS, a popular real-time operating system, is frequently chosen for embedded systems based on its capabilities and availability. Many students, startups, and established organizations have experience with FreeRTOS. Thus, a FreeRTOS implementation of cFS is on the cFS roadmap and will address a demand in the flight software community. To better understand the challenges and implications of cFS on FreeRTOS, we initiated an effort to create FreeRTOS implementations of cFS.

The presentation was very well received. The original creators of OSAL and cFS were among the audience. They, along with others, were very complimentary.

In the coming weeks METECS will be releasing the Operating System Abstraction Layer for the FreeRTOS Windows Simulator. This OSAL underlies the core Flight System software allowing cFS to run on FreeRTOS. An announcement will be made when the OSAL is available.

METECS was very excited to see the launch of the NG-12 spacecraft on Saturday. This spacecraft, which reached the ISS on Monday, contains over 8000 lbs of cargo. Part of that cargo were some robotic payloads for the Astrobee robot that the METECS team helped develop. METECS is very excited to see this hardware and software get deployed for checkout later this year!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWZKQ73aGrg

METECS is proud to recognize and contribute financially to these great open source projects. The results for the 2019 METECS Open Source Awards are:

1st place: Mozilla Foundation ($500)
2nd place: Blender.org ($300)
3rd place: Python ($200)