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Army, NASA ink partnership for space technology

Army News Service

Release Date: 1/16/2004

By Rae A Higgins

WARREN, Mich. (Army News Service, Jan. 16, 2004) -- An Army research and development center has entered a partnership with NASA to provide technology to the Space Shuttle program, and at the same time, transfer NASA technology to Army ground vehicle development.

The results of this partnership by the Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center will impact not only the lives of countless Soldiers, but also will affect the future and safety of space exploration, TARDEC officials said.

Dr. Richard McClelland, TARDEC's director, and Dr. Grace Bochenek, its technical director, met with James Kennedy, director, NASA Kennedy Space Center, in late 2003 to sign the Space Act Agreement. The purpose of this agreement is to contribute to the nation's "Return to Flight" program by working with NASA engineers, said Dr. Thomas Meitzler, who heads TARDEC's Visual Perception Laboratory and leads this effort on behalf of TARDEC.

The TARDEC engineers plan to share technology on: remotely detecting debris and ice on external fuel tanks prior to launch; using experience with color-image processing to suggest methods to augment existing shuttle tile inspection methodology; and using 3-D technology and displays to assist with space station and satellite deployment and maintenance, Meitzler said.

TARDEC's in-house expertise in identifying, testing, and selecting imagers, digital visual imaging, photosimulaton and 3-D displays resides within its Visual Perception Lab. It also has experience testing multiband imaging and digital color imaging and displays.

Conversely, NASA has expertise in Space Shuttle and other space vehicle maintenance launch site processing, as well as in space operations under demanding and extreme conditions. Meitzler and his team are enthusiastic about this agreement because they said the U.S. Army will benefit from the experience and knowledge gained from working with NASA engineers and scientists - TARDEC can apply NASA technologies to the military ground systems it develops. All involved, Meitzler said, expect the exchange of technology and information to be mutually beneficial.

Both the Army and NASA need to remotely assess vehicles. NASA needs this capability because of the extreme nature of pre- and post-launch conditions. Meitzler said that TARDEC can use this technology to enhance existing and future military ground systems. This initiative to develop and test video and other sensor system technologies to determine vehicle state will help the users -- Soldiers and astronauts -- to make more informed decisions about their respective vehicle systems, Meitzler said.

Technologies identified and developed in this research agreement have the potential to contribute to NASA pre- and post-launch processing, vehicle and crew safety assessments and operations for a variety of space vehicle systems, officials said. The Army gains by using newly derived applied and enhanced technologies for a variety of local and remote operational objectives, including Identification of Friend-or-Foe and battlefield vehicle damage assessment, Meitzler said.

TARDEC, the nation's laboratory for advanced military automotive technology, is part of the Army Materiel Command's Research, Development and Engineering Command. Headquartered at the Detroit Arsenal, Warren, Mich., TARDEC is located in the heart of the world's automotive capital. TARDEC's technical staff leads research in not only combat and tactical vehicle technology, but also in a wide variety of logistics equipment, water generation and purification, fuels and lubricants, military bridging, countermine equipment, and more.

(Editor's note: Rae Higgins is a contractor for the U.S. Army RDECOM-Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center.)