Manassas Workers Give U.S. the Moon

BAE's Computers Power New Spacecraft

NASA officials are exploring the moon for the first time in almost a decade, thanks to a computer system manufactured in Manassas.

BAE Systems' computer motherboard is aboard the two robotic spacecraft NASA launched into orbit June 18. The unmanned spacecraft are on a mission to find places on the moon's surface where humans could land and stay for an extended time.

"It's not a question of 'Is there a safe place to land?'; it's more looking at potential sites and deciding which is best to go back to," said Craig Tooley, project manager of the mission at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. "We're very excited and hope the legacy of [this mission] is some fresh footprints on the moon in the next decade."

The first spacecraft that was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., is the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO. It will orbit the moon for a year, mapping its surface and running tests that will help NASA find a safe, smooth location for humans. While creating an "atlas of the moon," Tooley said, the LRO will run numerous tests that will check such things as temperature and radiation levels. Once the one-year mission is complete, the LRO will stay in orbit for two more years to do "scientific studies" of the moon, he said.

The second device in orbit is the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS). Its mission is to plunge into the moon's surface in October and create a miniature explosion. The satellite portion of the LCROSS, which will detach before the rest of the device strikes the moon, will take pictures and perform a chemical analysis of the debris as it flies off the moon's surface. Tooley said the explosion will help NASA officials determine whether there is water underneath the moon's surface.

BAE Systems' computers are part of both devices and play a strategic role in the mission, Tooley said, noting that NASA turned to the company because it has produced successful hardware for previous missions.

On the LRO, BAE has also implemented "space wire," which gathers the data collected from all the instruments aboard the spacecraft and then sends the information to Earth much more quickly than other devices.

"The volume of data the LRO mission is bringing back is larger than the volume brought back by any of NASA's . . . planetary missions," Tooley said. "We needed something that could move the data very quickly."

Tooley said the data is being transferred at 100 megabits per second, about 10 times as fast as the speed at which most people download information using a wireless Internet connection.

"We're bringing data back from the moon that is faster than what you get at home when you are much closer to the source," Tooley said.

Vic Scuderi, manager of space electronics at BAE Systems, said it took his company about 14 months to build the computer boards. The boards, which are carefully scrutinized before they are shipped, resemble the motherboards found in computers but are "radiation-hardened" and meant to withstand the extreme temperatures and conditions in space.

"We need to carefully study every piece before it goes to make sure it will function," Scuderi said. "There is no Maytag repairman in space, which means there are no chances to repair it if it breaks."

Although he would not reveal what it cost to produce the products, Scuderi said at least 300 employees worked on the "multimillion"-dollar project. BAE, which is a global defense, security and aerospace company, employs more than 10,000 people in the Washington area, 400 of whom are based in Manassas.