INVITED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Abstract In physics, a particle can cross a barrier to reach
a more optimal state – even if that barrier would seem insurmountable under
ordinary conditions. In the design of
spacecraft, there are many barriers to progress concerning thermal,
radiation, cost, and the need to reduce risk.
Electronics has evolved to where small spacecraft in low orbits can
increasingly perform the functions of their larger brethren. While on the surface this may simply seem
like the natural evolution of capability, it really represents a significant
non-linearity in terms of cost, schedule, capability and risk. Therefore,
small space represents perhaps today’s most important direction in space
capability. This talk will address the
forces that are causing this change, the magnitude of the change and the
special relationship between electronics progress and the realization of
capable small spacecraft. Finally, it
will discuss those challenges that remain unsolved for the full realization
of benefit. Biography Dr. Steven
C. Suddarth is the Director of the Configurable Space Microsystems
Innovations and Applications Center (COSMIAC). He
serves as Research Faculty at the University of New Mexico. He is responsible
for leading the COSMIAC collaboration between Government, Industry, and
Academia to ensure design success and deployment of programmable logic in
space, military and civil applications as well as to develop the long-term
plans for the Center. A retired Air Force Colonel with 24 years of
service, Dr. Suddarth served his last military
assignment as the liaison from U.S. Strategic Command to the National
Laboratories. Based in Los Alamos, NM, Col. Suddarth
initiated and oversaw a development team of 60 people spanning four sites to
develop key technologies for the war fighter. Dr. Suddarth
has overseen several substantial computer engineering/embedded systems
projects. These include the development of a first-ever 3-dimensional mixed analog/digital image processor which advanced the
State-of-the-Art by 3 orders of magnitude. Dr. Suddarth
also built and tested several airborne optical sensing systems, unmanned
aerial robotics systems, and software systems for large military space
programs. Dr. Suddarth has served
in key leadership capacities in the Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force
Materiel Command, and the Air War College. In these positions, he organized,
led, and contributed to several efforts within the Air Force to rejuvenate
interest and investment in technology and assembled plans to expand graduate
education by a factor of 5, which substantially increased enrollment
at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT). Further efforts included
developing course materials, widely used today, for the indoctrination and
instruction of incoming Air Force scientists and engineers, while
contributing to current war efforts and demonstrating a key data-sharing
capability among fighter aircraft. Dr. Suddarth is a 1982
graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy (B.S. in Electrical Engineering), and
he holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University
of Washington. Dr. Suddarth is also a graduate of
the Brazilian Air Command and Staff College, U.S. Joint Forces Staff College,
and the U.S. Air War College. He has authored over 20 papers. |
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Abstract: For
the past two decades supercomputing has hitched a lift on the microprocessor
revolution with year-on-year performance increases driven by microprocessor
improvements. The transition from terascale to petascale computing has largely involved incremental
improvements to software and hardware but has involved a higher degress of parallelism than ever before. Computing at the
exascale, where application will consist of tens of
millions of threads, will require disruptive changes
to hardware and software. This talk will explore some of the challenges and
discuss if an exaflop/s is really achievable this
decade. Biography Dr. Mark Parsons is the Executive Director of EPCC, the
supercomputing centre at The University of Edinburgh, and the Associate Dean
for e-Research at the University. He has worked in parallel computing since
1994 after gaining his PhD in particle physics while working on the ALEPH
experiment at CERN. His research interests focus on next generation hardware
and software technologies for supercomputing. Today he is a prominent figure
in European High Performance Computing and leads a number of large
collaborative projects funded by the European Commission. The most recent of
these being the CRESTA exascale software project
will explore many of the challenges posed by the current race to deliver an exaflop/s. |
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Biography Robert
Manning is
the Flight System Chief Engineer on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)
mission; a new, ambitiously large rover named “Curiosity” set to land on Mars
in 2012. Robert has been designing, testing and operating robotic
spacecraft and rovers for 30 years at JPL.
His career has allowed him to live through some of JPL’s most
harrowing robotic moments. Robert started out as an
electronics engineer, designing and testing on-board computers for
missions like Galileo, Magellan and the Cassini mission to Saturn. In the
1990’s Rob became the chief engineer for a project called Mars Pathfinder,
which became the first to send a little rover (named Sojourner) to Mars. In
the process, he learned from past masters from the Apollo and Viking era what
it took to safely land robots on another planet in an intricate process
called “EDL” or Entry, Descent and Landing. Afterward he co-conspired
the idea to modify Pathfinder and Sojourner to become the MER Spirit and
Opportunity rovers. As an award, he
also led the flight system engineering for the Rover and Entry, Descent and
Landing teams. After MER he became the Mars Program Chief Engineer and also
spent time on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and
the Phoenix EDL teams prior to joining the MSL team. As a result of his fortunes at JPL, Robert has
received two NASA medals and is in the Aviation Week Magazine Space Laureate
Hall of Fame in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. In 2004, “SpaceNews” magazine named Rob as one of 100 people who
made a difference in civil, commercial and military space since 1989. Robert is a graduate of Caltech and Whitman
College where he studied math, physics, computer science, and control
systems. He makes his home in Pasadena
with his wife Dominique and their daughter, Caline. |
