A new software platform designed to ease the passage of payloads from earth to space was announced today at the AAS Space Station Research and Development Conference by NanoRacks, LLC, the leading company for space utilization.
Payload TrackerTM is the first ever user-friendly tool that is specifically designed to allow customers, government officials, launch providers and others to track individual payloads through the myriad NASA safety and procedural requirements involved in launching customer project to the International Space Station.
“One of the complexities at NanoRacks as well as for everyone involved is tracking a payload once it enters the NASA system,” explained Michael Johnson, NanoRacks’ chief technology officer. “Payload TrackerTM was created to track step by step each of the NASA requirements, allowing all team members to immediately know the status of a given payload, where it is in the system, what modifications are required and the expected time to the next step.” NanoRacks is proud of the average of nine months to launch for their customers projects and see the Payload TrackerTM as allowing this pace to be maintained and even improved upon as the backlog grows larger and more diverse.
Payload Tracker was created by the Space Software Company specifically under license to NanoRacks. Explained Chief Developer Y K Addepally “we have enjoyed working closely with NanoRacks to understand the NASA requirements. The result is an extremely robust tool that will give peace of mind and accountability through any launch provider system, whether NASA, suborbital or any space mission.” Now ready for beta testing, the Payload TrackerTM will be utilized by NanoRacks and also will be available under license for use by third parties. “The era of space utilization has arrived,” adds Johnson, “and a tool like Payload TrackerTM will make the process more efficient and customer- friendly. We are hopeful that everyone involved in payload integration will make use of their own custom-adapted Payload Tracker.”
Use of the Program allows all the team members to know, for example, when a stem cell payload has cleared the NASA safety review phase 2 with or without required modifications. The NanoRacks team member responsible for phase 3 safety will have all the necessary information immediately. No review meetings at every stage, no crossed messages. And the owner of the payload is kept automatically informed of the status at every step. Explained Addepally, “Payload Tracker brings all the stake holders of a customer’s payload together onto a single platform to manage information and exchange data for each and every step in the safety and integration process. And that’s good for the overall mission.”
The Platform is expected to be operational by September of 2012. Preview at http://www.payloadtracker.com.
or further information please contract Rich Pournelle at rpournelle@nanoracks.com NanoRacks LLC is the leading company for utilization of the space environment. We launched in 2009 to provide quality hardware and services for the U.S. National Laboratory onboard the International Space Station. The company operates its own research platforms onboard the U.S. National Laboratory which can house plug and play payloads using the CubeSat form factor, both inside the space station and external now as well. In the first year of operations the NanoRacks team flew over 35 payloads and currently enjoy a customer pipeline of over 60 payloads including domestic and international educational institutions, research organizations and government organizations. In the suborbital market, we are delighted that Virgin Galactic has chosen NanoRacks to design, fabricate and install research racks on the SpaceShipTwo. Visit us at www.nanoracks.com and follow us at @nanoracks.
