FROM LEARNING TO LAUNCH

Shooting the moon: (l to r) Dave Dominguez, Amritpal Singh, Robert Thompson and Yee “Ken” Tai digitally recreate ancient skies and monuments for international competition.

It’s Dec. 3, 2010 in the lobby of the Seventh Street Classroom Building 10 days before the end of Metro State’s fall semester. The weather has been unseasonably warm and a wan sun illuminates this dreary room where four men huddle around laptops, feverishly hammering on their keyboards.

In less than 30 minutes they are scheduled to present a “rough draft” of the Cordova Project to Jeff Forrest, who chairs the Department of Aviation and Aerospace Science. This is a go-no-go moment for this team of students, who for the last three months have been preparing to take a powerful software called the Satellite Toolkit (STK) back in time.

Developed by AGI, a Pennsylvania-based company that produces software for the space, defense and intelligence sectors, STK is considered one of the most powerful programs for simulating missions and tracking objects in space or on the ground. STK’s three-dimensional visualization capabilities allow users to do everything from model interplanetary travel trajectories to tracking ground-aerial military maneuvers—or send 3D-modeled beer cans into orbit, an exercise students particularly relish.



“STK is heavily used in industry,” explains Jose Lopez, an affiliate faculty member and retired aerospace engineer, who teaches a class at Metro State on using the software. “There are a lot of aerospace jobs where STK certification is required.”

The class he teaches, “Special Topics in Aerospace Science,” is to the best of his knowledge the only one of its kind in the country where students actually get hands-on experience learning to use STK. Most universities with STK licenses, he says, give students access to the application but don’t teach it directly. “My gut feeling is they treat it like (Microsoft) Word or MATLAB (a technical computing language used by engineers and scientists); students have to learn it on their own. But you need guidance to learn all the pieces of STK, it’s so incredibly powerful.”

The team, students Dave Dominguez, Robert Thompson, Amritpal Singh and Yee “Ken” Tai, are struggling to make this uber-powerful software do something even its architects would have difficulty imagining. As entrants in the 2011 AGI University Grant Competition, they are wrestling STK back to the time of the Pyramids, 4713 BCE, to see if it can serve as an archaeoastronomical tool.

Since the early part of fall semester 2010, Lopez has mentored the Cordova team through months of learning curves, missteps, software incompatibilities, personality differences and flashes of genius as they prepared to submit their project in April 2011. The competition— first-place winners receive $1,000, a speaking opportunity and bragging rights—asks undergraduate and graduate students to propose a problem and then solve it using AGI software.

The problem plaguing the team today is emblematic of the obstacles and challenges faced by this diverse group of engineers, software developers and aviation specialists, each in possession of different computers, operating systems and versions of critical software, especially the 3D-modelling package by Autodesk. In trying to load the latest iterations of their ancient monuments, STK balked, refusing to accept them.

“We need to establish procedures,” Lopez tells the team, exasperated. “We need to know what went wrong. This needs to be written down!”

Dave Dominguez, the team leader, visibly agitated, asks: “Where is the scenario?!”

Suddenly Singh and Thompson yell, “We got it!”

High fives make the rounds. “Sweet!” Dominguez says, relieved. “Let’s get Chichen Itza (a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Mayan civilization) in.”

The celebration is short-lived as they scoop up laptops and head to the Advanced Aviation and Aerospace Flight Simulation Training Lab to give their demo.

The Cordova Project is a “go.”

The Cordova Project
It all began in early 2010. Jason Cordova (BS ’10), a veteran of the U.S. Navy and a Metro State senior, was the only student in Lopez’s STK class last year who volunteered to take a crack at the AGI competition. Armed with an enthusiast’s knowledge of the ancient skies, Cordova wanted to see whether STK could behave like an astronomical time machine. Could STK model how ancient people aligned important buildings to the heavens?

Intense and restively curious, Cordova approached Lopez with his idea. Intrigued but concerned about timing and scope, Lopez, who’s managed large teams and projects for the military and Raytheon, paired Cordova with another senior at the time, Willard Kyle Otto (BS ’10), an aerospace technology and design major skilled in 3D modelling.

With only about 12 weeks to complete their project, Cordova and Otto chose to model only two buildings on the Chichen Itza site. While Cordova worked on the archaeoastronomy, Otto built computer models of the iconic Temple of Kukulkan or El Castillo and El Caracol, a structure thought to be an observatory with windows and doors aligned to track Venus’ journey across the sky.

Using the STK vector tool Cordova and Otto showed known alignments from El Caracol to the summer and winter solstice sunsets, the summer solstice sunrise and Venus’ northern-most rising point. They also pinpointed the stars Pollux and Canopus rising and Fomalhaut setting.

El Caracol to the summer and winter solstice sunsets, the summer solstice sunrise and Venus’ northern-most rising point. They also pinpointed the stars Pollux and Canopus rising and Fomalhaut setting.

“The Mayans incorporated these alignments to mark days of the year when the stars would be in a significant phase,” Cordova explains. “They would orient a temple to view celestial events, to mark solstices or equinoxes. It was a huge part of their lives. It was evident in the way they built these structures and speaks to the advancement of ancient people. It dispels stereotypes that everything old is primitive.”

On the day AGI was scheduled to post contest results on its website (www.agi.com), Lopez kept checking it hourly. It wasn’t until 9 p.m. that Lopez learned that his digital archaeoastronomers from Metro State had bested teams from all over the world, earning an honorable mention. In 2010, the competition’s inaugural year, the contest attracted entries from dozens of universities worldwide.

HIGH FLYING—Affiliate professor Jose Lopez at the site of a balloon launch conducted by his Introduction to Space class. Lopez gives Metro State students opportunities to test-drive careers in space

A space odyssey
While aligning ancient monuments to stars represents a cool intellectual and technological challenge, the exercise is only part of the Department of Aviation and Aerospace Science’s plan to boldly go into the business of building a workforce for Colorado’s burgeoning aerospace industry.

According to the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation, Colorado is the country’s third-largest aerospace economy—home to almost 400 companies, four military commands and corporate juggernauts such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Ball Aerospace. Almost 25,000 people work in private aerospace companies with another 28,000-plus in the military. With civilian space travel once again fueling the public’s romance with the cosmos not to mention commercial interests related to national security, research, alternative energy and telecommunications, that’s only the beginning.

Located as it is in downtown Denver— the Mile High metroplex ranks first among the country’s biggest cities for the number of aerospace professionals employed in private companies—Metro State is ideally positioned to become a go-to resource for companies seeking interns, future employees and professional development training; opportunities that haven’t been lost on Aviation Chair Forrest.

Leveraging the College’s flexible Independent Degree Program (IDP), a major where students can—with approval—develop their own learning plans, the Aviation and Aerospace Science Department has launched options for IDP degrees in aerospace system engineering technology (in conjunction with the Department of Engineering Technology), aerospace physics (with the Physics Department), a space commercialization certificate, emphasis and IDP minor as well as an aerospace operations concentration and one in aerospace management. All in all, Metro State has well over 100 students enrolled in some kind of space-related program.

“Our Intro to Aerospace Operations class for fall of 2011 had the highest number of early registrations yet,” observes Forrest, himself a 1991 Metro State aviation graduate. “Once students see how much fun this domain is—it is challenging and thrilling—I believe we will see steady enrollment growth. This subject and profession introduce students to topics that most can’t even dream about. And it provides an avenue to the future, which is global in scope and transferable to any industry in skill.”

In 2007 Forrest also secured the donation from AGI of 22 educational licenses of the STK software suite, a gift worth approximately $1.5 million. Last year Alex McKenzie, a junior majoring in physics and mathematics, became Metro State’s first student to earn his professional STK certification after taking Lopez’s class—part of his reward for passing the test: A maroon polo shirt that reads, “AGI-STK-Certified Rocket Scientist.”

The Competition Version 2011
Impressed by what Cordova and Otto accomplished with only weeks to prepare and intrigued by the archaeo-astronomy angle, Lopez wondered what a team could do if it took the better part of an academic year to prepare. Could an undergraduate team from Metro State win against students and teams—some with advanced degrees—from eminent programs around the world?

With months to get ready, Lopez expanded the scope to encompass the entire Chichen Itza site, the Giza Necropolis (the Egyptian pyramids in Cairo) and Machu Pichu in Peru. By including the pyramids at Giza, the team would have to push STK back in time to 4700 BCE, a feat even some AGI experts didn’t know could be done. They would also have to recreate the night skies that so inspired the ancient peoples by inputting star and planetary data into their scenario from the STK database. Finally, they would build a “plug-in”—software—that would enable non-STK-conversant astronomers to research alignments on their own.

At the beginning of the academic year, Lopez began looking for students. He hand-picked Dominguez, a career-changer and software developer, who after breaking his neck in a mountain bike accident in 2002, decided while in recovery to check off some items on his bucket list.

“I had a lot of time to reflect,” he says of his post-surgery year in a brace. “One of my biggest regrets was I had never gotten a master’s degree and had never learned to fly.”

Dominguez already had a bachelor’s in electronics engineering technology with a minor in computer science when he started taking classes at Metro State in meteorology, a long-standing interest of his. Lopez’s STK class, however, reignited his passion for cracking the binding on computer software and “making things happen.”

Dominguez, who graduated this spring in aerospace operations and is interested in graduate school and applying his STK savvy toward new Earth- and space-based solar energy technologies, took the reins as the Cordova Project’s team lead. He and Lopez brought Amritpal Singh into the fold.

Singh, a first-generation college student from Punjab, India and professional flight officer major, came to the project with the strongest aviation background, having worked in aircraft maintenance. He is also heavily committed outside of school. Married and working full-time at a big-box computer store as a computer technician, he’s helping to support his parents, who live in the Denver area but are facing deportation.

Though it’s been hard to concentrate, he says, the internship has given him a greater understanding of space and the software technology associated with it. “My long-time goal is I want to fly in a space mission,” he says. “That’s my main dream. But who knows?”

At 21 Ken Tai, a junior majoring in aerospace systems engineering technology, is the youngest team member and arguably its most laid back. He came to Metro State from Sabah, Malaysia (on the island of Borneo) on the recommendation of his uncle, George Middlemist, the College’s controller, and was a veteran of Lopez’s Introduction to Space class. Tai, who did much of the team’s research on star alignments and monument placements, discovered the competition, which Lopez runs as an internship, through the College’s internship office.

“Sometimes it feels overwhelming,” he says. “There are some egos. I just sit quietly and do my stuff; I just do what they tell me to do.”

Robert Thompson, a senior majoring in aerospace physics and aerospace systems engineering technology, has perhaps travelled the furthest of anyone to work on the project. Though he’s the only Colorado native on the team, 10 years ago, he was also a homeless teen, working odd jobs and flying a flag on the streets to bring in extra cash.

Deeply connected to his scout troop, which became a surrogate family, Thompson managed by the time he was 18 to get both he and his mom, who suffers from progressive multiple sclerosis, off the streets, while at the same time earning his GED and becoming an Eagle Scout. He caught wind that the team needed a crackerjack 3D modeler to “build” digital versions of Giza and Chichen Itza.

As with any complex endeavor, the Cordova Project had its apogees and perigees. Prior to February, none of the members had any experience programming in HTML, MATLAB or STK. The team, too, became hamstrung by STK’s byzantine naming conventions for directories, which caused an ongoing scramble for files. Machu Pichu fell by the wayside due to timing. Then there was the sheer enormity of inputting thousands and thousands of stars into STK’s database from the Hipparcos 6 ephemeris or star map.

There were high points, too. On Feb. 3, wearing suits and looking vaguely discomfited, the team presented their early work to Metro State President Stephen Jordan, Provost Vicki Golich, the Chairman of the College’s Board of Trustees and other high-ranking College officials, intrigued by this next generation of aerospace workers and the educational potential of the software.

“How much time a week do you spend on this?” Jordan asks.

“Twelve to 15 hours per week per person,” Dominguez says.

By early spring as the AGI deadline loomed that number would double, with each member logging hours a day on the project while balancing their other classes, personal lives, March Madness and the Cricket World Cup.

On April 14, Dominguez submitted the Cordova Project, complete with beautifully rendered 3D models of the Giza and Chichen Itza plains and alignments matched and confirmed to various stars. (Whimsically, the team even predicted the next two North Stars, the change a result of how the Earth moves vis-à-vis the movement of the celestial firmament.) They also completed a preliminary version of the plug-in to allow non-STK users to research alignments.

“This is a very creative project,” Lopez says. “It pushed the bounds of STK, it wasn’t designed to do that, it really goes outside the envelope. I feel this is a first-place scenario, but I’m biased.”

In the end, though, Metro State garnered a second honorable mention.

In an email to his teammates, Dominguez wrote, “The winners most certainly deserved their win. We have nothing to be ashamed of. We did an amazing job.”