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Managing a Critical, Fast-Turnaround Project
Developing the Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS) was a prime example of a highly critical, highly visible, fast-turnaround project. When the work was authorized in September 2003, we were asked to complete it in six months, in time for a projected March 2004 shuttle Discovery launch date. After the Columbia accident, no shuttle was going to fly until we had the capability to examine it for damage after launch, so any significant delay in building the boom would keep the shuttle program and the work that depended on it — notably the completion of the International Space Station — on hold. Read more...
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MITRE: The Collaborative Landscape
The MITRE Corporation's goal is to “bring the corporation to bear” on critical national problems — to apply all its relevant knowledge and experience to each of the complex projects it takes on for the U.S. government. Making valuable knowledge available when and where it is needed has always been a primary aim of knowledge management and the goal of many knowledge-intensive organizations. MITRE has succeeded far better than many organizations at supporting the learning and knowledge sharing that bringing the corporation to bear requires. The practices, technologies, values, and environments behind this success offer a useful model of how knowledge sharing works. MITRE's experience shows that there is no single source of effective collaboration and certainly no technology “solution” that makes it happen. Collaboration and effective knowledge management rest on a foundation of mutually supportive elements — a broad and varied collaborative landscape. Read more...
Learning to Drive the Mars Rovers
Learning to drive a Mars rover is no easy task. It's not a process you can just read up on and do right the first time. For one thing, there is the time lag to contend with. It takes ten minutes or more for a radio signal to travel between Earth and Mars, so you get no rapid feedback to show the result of a command or allow for quick corrections of mistakes. The surface of Mars, rock-strewn and with many different types of soil, poses constant challenges. And you have to become intimately acquainted with the peculiarities and limitations of each rover. Spirit (MER A) has been challenged with mountainous territory and now has power constraint issues that have to be taken into account. Opportunity (MER B) has been used to explore a relatively flat, crater-strewn area; it has developed different problems over time that affect what you can ask it to do. Read more...
