A simplistic, 1950s-style graphic shows Earth and Mars, and a dotted line running from Earth out to an orbit around Mars.
Say you want to send a satellite from Earth all the way to Mars. Now, it's got to get there without running out of gas, malfunctioning or otherwise causing trouble. And if that's not enough, it's also got to sample things and send the results back to Earth. Now, that being said, it seems obvious that you can't just go building satellites all willy-nilly. Satellites are expensive little things, and you need to make sure that all your plans will work before you run out of money.
A simplistic animated drawing of a scale - the satellite sits on one side, bags of cash on the other. When the money outweighs the satellite, it rises up. A tick appears and a cash register rings.
This is why before building anything, scientists and engineers hold what looks like an endless series of meetings, phone calls, telecons, tag-ups and get-togethers, culminating in what's known as a design review. Take, for example, the MAVEN spacecraft.
Photo of a square satellite with two solar panel wings. Text on screen - 'MAVEN'. A drawing of Mars appears next to it, with its atmosphere split into layers labelled 'lower', 'middle' and 'upper'.
Now, it's a great idea for a satellite, one that studies the upper atmosphere of Mars, but, of course, it's not good enough just to have a great idea. It needs to be reviewed just like anything else.
A cartoon document for a 'Glow-filament enshrined in vacuum-sealed glass enclosure' is stamped 'Certified'. In an inset is a picture of a light globe with 'bright, fancy, useful' written next to it. The author is 'T. Edison, founder, General Electric'.
At this review, a whole lot of other smart people take a good, long look at the design and, hopefully, they decide they like it. If all goes well, they think that everything makes sense, the budget is in line, there isn't substantial risk involved and now we can move on to the next step.
A series of documents appear. The 'MAVEN Project Design' is stamped 'Certified'. The 'Maven Budget' is stamped 'Money!', the 'Risk Report' is stamped 'Safety!' and the 'Final Analysis' is stamped 'Move on!'
And once you've finished, you'll finally be able to get all the data you wanted without any trouble.
The MAVEN satellite flies through space. Text on screen - 'NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. www.nasa.gov/goddard'.
YEARS: 5–6
This animated clip describes some of the steps NASA took during the design review process for the development of a new satellite.
Can you think of any other steps in design reviews?
Video courtesy of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Production Date: 2010
Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Posted 28 Oct 2021 28 Oct 2021 Thu 28 Oct 2021 at 3:33am , updated 28 Oct 2021 28 Oct 2021 Thu 28 Oct 2021 at 3:44am
