A Christmas Miracle
On such a rapid schedule, the challenges that come with building a spacecraft also move at a rapid pace and never take a holiday.
On Dec. 23, 2018, with most employees on holiday break and delivery of the satellite less than two months away, the team faced a challenge that all space engineers dread.
They were running a routine electrical checkout prior to the start of the random vibration test when suddenly the vehicle started behaving oddly. "It was booting up, but there was no data coming through the test port," Damikolas recalled. "Adam and I were beating our heads against the wall trying to figure out what was wrong. We had no easy way to assess the health of the vehicle or safely charge the batteries which added even more pressure to solve the issue as quickly as possible."
They eventually went home and after a stressful night's sleep returned on Christmas Eve. To their surprise, the vehicle turned on as expected, and the schedule was back on track. "We call it our Christmas miracle," Damikolas said. Despite attempts to troubleshoot, the behavior was not seen again on the satellite and after doing a risk assessment, the joint decision was made to move forward with testing. Strategic risk taking with key stakeholder involvement was required in order to get the satellite on-orbit as quickly as possible.
Damikolas, Gunderson, and their team are already sketching out plans for continuing to define the new space paradigm with evolved processes and designs for future space technology and vehicles, and the next leg of the space race.