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UPDATE: NASA has postponed the September 27 launch of Artemis 1, the first mission in the program.
In the year When NASA plans to send a crewed mission to the moon for the next Artemis program in the spring of 2024, astronauts are expected to use technology developed in West Michigan.
Grand Rapids-based Dorner Works has developed a space-eligible type of Ethernet switch on a small chip that would allow for communication on spacecraft. According to the company, this technology is a world first.
“There’s a lot of specific data to support or operate this module and make sure it meets the requirements in every case,” said Danche Ggiorgjewski, Senior Engineering Group Manager at Dorner Works. Verifying that it works in an environment.
In the year Founded in 2000, Dorner Works has provided technology engineering services to a variety of industries, including solutions for automotive, industrial, medical and consumer products, and now the aerospace industry.
The development of this NASA-specific technology took Gjoorgjievski and her team of engineers, as well as partners and other customers, nearly three years to develop. A rigorous design process precedes the construction of prototypes that will be tested before integration with NASA systems.
Touted as the next era of human exploration, NASA’s Artemis program envisions a series of increasingly advanced missions leading to exploration of the Moon and eventually Mars.
As the first phase of the program, the Artemis 1 mission in 2011 It attempted to launch on August 29 but failed to complete the launch due to technical problems. A second attempt on September 3 also failed.
At press time, Artemis I recently passed a critical refueling test ahead of a new launch test on September 27.
Artemis II, the program’s second mission and first mission, is currently scheduled to launch in May 2024. The mission will send crew members on a lunar flight test before returning to Earth on NASA’s Orion spacecraft.
Finally, Artemis III is scheduled to take crews to the Moon in 2025. According to NASA, these crews will include the first woman and first person of color to walk on the moon.
The opportunity for Dorner Works to develop the technology for NASA came from the partnership as well as its previous project experience, said Greg Wilds, director of business development.
“We’ve leveraged partnerships with billion-dollar chip companies in Silicon Valley,” Wills said. “We work very closely with them on their latest generation of chips. In this case, it’s more reliable for the radiation environment in space. We were working with one of those chip companies at the time and the company pointed us to this particular opportunity.
Wilds also said NASA’s involvement came from Dorner Works’ participation in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program coordinated by the Small Business Administration. The program is intended to select businesses for advanced technology for federal research and development through grant or contract funding.
Dorner Works was formerly a research project company for NASA and worked with the administration prior to the Artemis program.
“This gave us the pedigree that NASA wanted us to support the mission,” Wilds said.
Georgievski credits the company’s expertise in networking technology, which NASA was looking for.
Previously, astronauts relied on slow and proprietary technology to connect devices. Now, the use of Dorner Works technology on the Artemis II mission will be the first time astronauts will use a gigabit Ethernet connection in space to communicate with their team or send messages to their families.
The new technology is a physically compact version of what Ethernet networking capabilities normally include, Wilds says.
“So an Ethernet network is the type of computer network that we have in many of our offices and homes, and it’s often managed by what’s called an Ethernet switch – a big box like a pizza-sized box,” Wilds said. Engineers have taken that task and put it on a computer chip that’s more radiation-hardened or more reliable—a computer chip specialized to support NASA’s space missions.
Before this happens, testing and system integration must be done. Dorner Works will complete part of that testing in a laboratory at its Grand Rapids headquarters, while team members will travel off-site for testing at NASA’s Systems Integration Laboratory.
A challenge in developing space-efficient technology is preparing for high radiation doses.
“Traditional chips in computers or the chips we talk to in our phones can’t be reliable,” Wilds said. “They don’t work in space. They will have errors and will not work properly.
To combat this, Dorner Works has worked in software code and programming to protect the chip, which provides a reliable network from the space capsule.
While this technology was originally designed for NASA, Georgievski and Wilds said it could be used in other applications in the future.
“There is potential to support the next generation as well,” Georgievsky said. Wilds added that the company is working with aviation and ground vehicle customers to find reliable connections for aircraft or vehicles.
For the Dorner Works team, the opportunity to support the Artemis mission is exciting and significant, not only for the company and West Michigan, but globally.
“With the Artemis missions, it’s not just the first launch — it will eventually go to the Moon, back to the Moon and then to Mars,” Wilds said. “It is human beings who do these steps. We are very excited to be a part of that.
This story appears in the Oct. 3 issue of the Grand Rapids Business Journal. To get more stories like this delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
