Jeffrey Gutkowski...

Background:

I grew up in Edina, Minnesota which is a suburb of Minneapolis. The weather is so wonderful down here; it is always hot enough to jump into the pool, day or night. However, I will always have a soft spot for snow and that frigid breeze.

I go to college at Iowa State University in Ames, IA where I am a senior in Aerospace Engineering. Go Cyclones! At Iowa State, I am involved with many clubs and organizations. There are the usual ones for space geeks: AIAA, Iowa State Space Society, and Physics and Astronomy Club. I am also in the Society of International Engineers partners program, where exchange students get paired with an instant friend to answer any questions, eat lunch with and have a good time. Then because 99.9% of my time is spent sitting and studying, I play at the Badminton club for that much needed exercise.

Attending Iowa State provided me with the opportunity to luckily gain a variety of work experience. I have worked at Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, in Omaha, NE and Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids, IA. While at Northrop I did software development and engineering process modeling. And I worked on avionics and aircraft systems engineering at Rockwell Collins.

NASA:

NASA has always been where I have wanted to work. To my surprise after sending my resume to JSC, they asked me for a phone interview. I figured it would be hard for Bob Musgrove to pick me based on one thirty-minute conversation on the phone, so I blitzkrieged Bob with emails, phone calls, and letters in the mail. To my utter amazement, two months later, Bob called me up and I became a NASA JSC Co-op!

First Tour (Fall 04)
My first tour was in the Flight Mechanics and Trajectory Design Branch (EG5). EG5 is involved on projects I have always dreamed of working on, pure aerospace engineering projects. The group handles the trajectory, guidance, and orbital mechanics analysis and design for advanced interplanetary missions as well as the replacement for the Space Shuttle, CEV. Everyone in EG5 and especially my mentors were very helpful and always kept things exciting. I definitely would like to do another tour here.

My first project involved a crash course in orbital mechanics. Currently aerobreaking can be used to capture into an orbit around a planet. Aerobreaking involves a vehicle using the planets' atmosphere to slow down by barely skimming it hundreds of times. An alternative is an aerocapture maneuver where the vehicle utilizes a heavy Thermal Protection Shield (TPS) and goes deep into the planets' atmosphere once. My task was to research a new maneuver that was in the middle. Doing multiple aerocapture maneuvers would reduce the heat rates the vehicle underwent, allowing for a lighter TPS and a reduction in flight time. We call it multipass aerocapture. My results have been positive and the group is going to continue analysis on the project.

The other project involved the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). One problem was that EG5 doesn't have the capability to model space capsule landing impacts. My task was to use a software suite called LS-DYNA to simulate and model experimental drop tests done in the lab. The first problem was to correctly model a capsule impacting sand. This proved to be more challenging than anyone expected. I gathered experimental data from our drop tests with a wooden subscale space capsule, which we dropped into a large sandbox. I never imagined I would be "playing" in the sand while at JSC!

Subscale Space Capsule Testing

Second Tour (Summer 05)
I did my second tour in DM/Flight Design and Dynamics Division of the Mission Operations Directorate. This group trains the FDO and TOPO flight controllers. My group, DM35, supports missions of other countries to the International Space Station (ISS). This includes the Russian Soyuz and Progress, the Japanese supply vehicle (HTV) and the European vehicle (ATV).

I worked on tasks that mainly involved rendezvous and orbital mechanics of these spacecraft. By using relative motion plots, CW equations and MATLAB I tried to recreate the HTV trajectory from 4 km behind the ISS to 500 m below. For this tour my mentor was the whole group. Many of them would stay at work late to help me understand the advanced concepts.

I also conducted Blink Rate Testing of 30 subjects to test how long it takes someone to determine a spacecraft’s orientation solely from sets of blinking lights. I also had the opportunity to watch in the Mission Control Center a Progress undock and dock with the ISS and the best of all, the Shuttle too! This tour for me turned out to be just as good as my first one. I will have some hard choices to make in figuring out where my last tour will be.

Third Tour (Summer 06)
After a full year back at school and surviving my junior year, I am back at NASA. Though, now I am off the main site and out at Ellington Field. I wanted to explore the aeronautics side of my major and this definitely turned out to be a very inspiring place. Stationed out at Ellington is NASA’s fleet of around 30 T-38N supersonic trainer aircraft, Shuttle Trainer Aircraft (STA), the Guppy transport (which looks like a whale with wings), two WB-57 high altitude research aircraft and last but not least the C-9 Vomit Comet. The coolest part:…I got to fly in the C-9!!!

T-38N

I had the unique opportunity this tour to directly apply my college classes to a project at NASA. In my first two tours, I was learning orbital mechanics on the fly because those classes aren’t offered until later in my major. So my main project involved aerodynamics, CFD, materials and corrosion analysis, NDI and leak testing of the Pitot-Static system and probes of the T-38s. This project was the most encompassing out of all my projects I have had at NASA, involving many factors, sensitivities and unknowns.

I had one other T-38 project which involved data collection using a laptop during takeoff test runs in El Paso, TX. The T-38s had gone through a redesign of the engine inlets and this was thought to of increased the performance of the aircraft at takeoff. In order to collect data to support this theory the aircraft had to go through some wiring modifications. I coordinated and troubleshooted with the aircraft technicians on these modifications and helped with some of the post-processing of the data.

My third and final project was with the high altitude aircraft. The crew is subjected to high levels of ambient noise from the engines and wear earplugs for protection. However, coupled with the helmet speakers it is hard to hear communications. A communications earplug was proposed, which is like an ear bud headphone with earplugs around it. I was tasked to be the engineering point of contact for the flight testing of these new devices.

Fourth Tour (Fall 06)
This tour is almost completely different than all the others. I am in a purely operations group that is responsible for training astronauts and other NASA personnel on anything to do with spacewalks or in other words Extravehicular Activity (EVAs) like the spacesuit and airlock systems. Training for an EVA mission is done in many different buildings: the large training pool (NBL), full scale mockups of the ISS and Shuttle, Vacuum Chambers and others. They also support each EVA task in the Mission Control Center.

I was able to participate in simulated missions where I played the role of an astronaut on the ISS doing a checkout on the spacesuits. So I made calls to Mission Control and could listen to the flight controllers working through the malfunctions. I took various classes too, some of which covered the Caution and Warning System of the spacesuit. This helped me on one of my projects to create a website listing the impacts of certain sensors or switches failing in the spacesuit.

I have felt that everything I have worked on has directly contributed to missions happening right now or a few months from now. It is a very different feeling from the rewarding projects in the engineering side of JSC too. And I have found through all these tours that I cannot decide which is better; both are awesome!

Other Fun Stuff:

My time here at JSC has been a blast, both inside and outside of work. Besides finishing up projects at work, every week there is a cool tour or lecture that you can only see or hear at NASA: tours of Mission Control, the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL), Shuttle Motion Simulators and lectures with Gene Krantz, Chris Kraft, Flight Directors and Astronauts.

The Co-ops do take exiting trips together too. This past summer I went with 28 others to see the STS-121 mission launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. We rented two 15 passenger vans and set out for 6 day trip. Not being fazed by a few scrubs, we saw the Space Shuttle launch on the 4th of July making the most spectacular fireworks I have seen.

Looking Up at the Launch

STS-121 Launch

Outside of work, I have had fun with in volleyball, badminton, parties, camping, concerts, tennis, $1 movies, rock climbing, Astros games, SCUBA diving, skydiving, and so many more things.

Future:

I will be back at the best place on earth this coming summer and back in EG5 for my last tour. I will support CEV and possibly various rendezvous projects.

Feel free to contact me: jtrekfan@iastate.edu