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Systems Analysis Lecture by Olivier de Weck |
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Date: May 24, 2007
Time: 1:00pm-2:30pm
Location: NASA Langley Research Center, Building 1209, Room 180
Additional Information: Presentation (.pdf)
SpaceNet: Enabling Exploration through Interplanetary Supply Chain Management
Olivier de Weck, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The term "supply chain" has traditionally been used to refer to the flow of materials and finished goods in and out of manufacturing facilities, warehouses and retail stores on Earth. Increasingly, there is a realization that crewed space missions, such as the sustainment of the International Space Station (ISS) or the buildup of a lunar outpost, should not be treated as isolated missions, but rather as an interplanetary supply chain. This has the potential to simultaneously (i) improve exploration capability and scientific return, (ii) minimize transportation costs and (iii) reduce risks through increased system availability and resilience to failures.
This seminar will first highlight some of the lessons learned from past and current crewed spaceflight logistics and introduce SpaceNet, an interplanetary supply chain planning and simulation framework. The goal of SpaceNet is to allow mission architects, planners, systems engineers and logisticians to focus on what will be needed to support future crewed exploration missions, primarily in the Earth-Moon-Mars system. Instead of helping to design the elements (vehicles) themselves in terms of propulsive and pressurized/un-pressurized cargo carrying capability, SpaceNet evaluates such vehicles in the context of a particular mission architecture and supply chain strategy. The software allows the user to specify how the transportation and inventory holding capacity resulting from particular mission architectures will be used in terms of various classes of supply. It simulates the time-varying flow of elements (vehicles), crew and supply items through the nodes and trajectories of a supply network in space, while taking into account feasibility as well as consumption and supply.
Prof. de Weck holds degrees in industrial engineering from ETH Zurich (1993), and in aerospace systems engineering from MIT (2001). Before joining MIT he was a liaison engineer and later engineering program manager on the F/A-18 aircraft project at McDonnell Douglas (1993-1997) in St. Louis. Prof. de Weck is currently an associate professor at MIT with dual appointments in the Engineering Systems Division and the Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics.
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