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Director Ed Stone Projects A Promising Future For JPL

       From The "JPL Universe"
       March 6, 1998

       Director Stone projects a promising future for JPL

       JPL's future has never been stronger and its variety of
       challenges never broader, JPL Director Dr. Edward Stone told
       Laboratory staff earlier this month in his annual State of
       the Laboratory address.

       The Laboratory's transition from an organization focused on
       one large, innovative mission a decade to one that delivers
       several smaller, innovative missions every year "has not been
       easy, and it won't be in the future," Stone acknowledged.
       "But if it were easy, we wouldn't be asked to do it. We are
       asked to do these things because they are hard. That's the
       reason the nation, and NASA, need a place like JPL.

       "That's what attracts and keeps most of us here," he added.
       "Most of us can work elsewhere, and perhaps earn more doing
       so. What keeps us here is the challenge and the opportunity
       to do what no one has done before--to search for life
       elsewhere."

       To help achieve success in its series of programs, the Lab
       must also continue its development of innovations in
       technology and in the implementation of new ways of doing
       business, he added. Stone called 1997 one of the most
       exciting years in the Laboratory's history. Highlights
       included Mars Pathfinder's July 4 landing, marking Earth's
       first return to Mars in 21 years; Mars Global Surveyor's
       September arrival at the red planet; TOPEX/Poseidon's
       monitoring (and continued tracking) of the development of El
       Niņo in the Pacific Ocean; Galileo, which finished its
       primary mission and began an extended study of Europa; and
       Cassini's October launch to Saturn "on schedule, under budget
       and full up in specification."

       Pledging that 1998 will be "no less exciting," Stone cited
       Voyager passing Pioneer 10 on Feb. 17 to become the most
       distant human-created object in the solar system. He also
       noted that there will be six launches of JPL missions and
       instruments over the next 12 months.

       JPL's missions are linked by the themes of searching for
       evidence of life outside of Earth as well as the discovery of
       the origins of galaxies, stars and planetary systems, Stone
       said. He called the search for life elsewhere "a shorthand
       term for one of the grand themes of what links many of our
       programs together."

       Stone emphasized that since life has been detected "anywhere
       there's water on Earth--whether it's at the bottom of the
       ocean; around vents of near-boiling water from the interior
       of the Earth; in Antarctica, at near freezing; or in a rock
       two miles down--the search for life elsewhere, in a certain
       sense, is a search for liquid water elsewhere in the solar
       system."

       Viking showed scientists the existence of water in Mars'
       past. But JPL's Mars program has already begun to step up the
       effort dramatically, as evidenced by its planned launches to
       the planet every 26 months for the next 10 years or more.

       The Laboratory will also aggressively pursue the origins of
       life elsewhere in the solar system. Under development are a
       half dozen missions that in the next 12 years will reeturn
       samples of alien worlds for scientists' analysis: Genesis,
       solar wind, 2003 return; Stardust, comet, 2006; the Japanese
       MUSES-C, asteroid, 2006; Mars Surveyor, soil and rocks, 2008
       and 2010; and Champollion/Deep Space 4, comet, 2010.

       In addition, Stone noted that in the last few weeks NASA's
       Solar System Exploration Subcommittee proposed launch dates
       for several missions in the Outer Planets Program: a Europa
       orbiter mission in 2003, Pluto Kuiper Express in 2004 and a
       solar probe mission in 2006 or 2007.

       While the payoff from the Cassini mission may not be realized
       for another six years and more, Stone envisions a possibility
       of still further studies. "It's hard for me to imagine that
       after the success of studying Saturn and its moon Titan
       starting in 2004 we will not want to go back to further
       explore this world, which has on its surface layer upon layer
       of organic matter produced over millions of years, very much
       like our own polar caps have layer by layer records of our
       past climate in the layers of ice and snow."

       At the same time, Stone said, the Origins program will step
       up the search for life beyond the solar system. The series of
       missions, which began with Hubble Space Telescope
       observations, will continue preparations for the next century
       with the development of the Space Infrared Telescope Facility
       (SIRTF), the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) and the Next
       Generation Space Telescope.

       To aid the Laboratory in carrying out its challenging Mars,
       Outer Planets and Origins programs now and in the future, the
       director pointed out that the New Millennium Program is a key
       element "to help us invest in, develop and demonstrate the
       flight technology we need to do these missions."

       "Technical innovations have been our forte for the last four
       decades; that's not new," Stone said. "What's new is that we
       have to be innovative in an era of faster development and
       lower cost."

       Stone said he was encouraged by four aspects of technical
       innovations recently implemented on Lab:

          * Innovative spacecraft technologies, such as X2000, which
            has a goal of drastically reducing the size, mass and
            power requirements of spacecraft avionics. "Cassini's
            dry mass was about 2,000 kilograms; Mars Pathfinder
            nearly 1,000 kilograms; the new outer planet spacecraft
            will be 150 kilograms--that's the challenge. And 10
            years from now, we want it to be 25 kilograms, down
            another factor of six."

          * Innovative spacecraft operations, such as for Deep Space
            1. "Not only does it have solar electric ion drive,
            which is an important step in interplanetary navigation,
            it will also have autonomous, or on-board
            navigation--clearly the next step in being able to fly a
            large number of missions is to have the missions be able
            to fly themselves. That clearly requires technical
            innovation."

          * Innovative sensor systems, including New Millennium's
            Deep Space 2 project onboard the Mars Polar Lander, in
            which probes will be embedded in Mars' surface to
            analyze the soil.

       In addition, Stone added, such sensor innovations are also
       necessary on a much larger scale. "Mass to orbit is money.
       This also has tremendous significance for commercial
       applications--if you spend $1 billion to put a system in
       Earth orbit, such as a radar, you have to sell an awful lot
       of product commercially to ever get your money back. On the
       other hand, if you can put a system up for $100 million, it's
       one-tenth the amount of product you have to sell, and
       suddenly the commercial possibilities become real.

       "So these innovations not only enable the kind of science we
       need to have in order to improve the quality of life here on
       Earth, it's also enabling us to become a more spacefaring
       nation."

          * Innovative approaches. "SIRTF in 1990 was 5,700
            kilograms, a multibillion dollar program. Now it's been
            reduced to 900 kilograms, due to the innovative approach
            of putting it in orbit around the sun rather than around
            Earth, carrying enough liquid helium so the mission can
            last five years rather than three. That is the reason
            SIRTF is in the budget and will be launched in
            2001--because of an innovative approach of going into
            orbit around the sun and changing the entire thermal
            environment in which this telescope will operate, which
            is at liquid helium temperatures."

       Stone also said that both external and internal innovations
       in implementation also play key roles in JPL's success.

          * Innovative external implementation is typified by JPL's
            partnership with Ball Aerospace in developing the
            QuikSCAT mission, which will replace the NASA
            Scatterometer (NSCAT), lost onboard Japan's ADEOS
            satellite last year. Ball's experience in small,
            Earth-orbiting spacecraft will help JPL to complete
            QuikSCAT in 12 months.

       "That's the kind of innovation in external implementation
       that will be critical for us to do all that we're being asked
       to do within finite dollar and work force resources," Stone
       said.

       He also noted that three of eight finalists for NASA's Low
       Award (equivalent to the Baldridge Award for corporate
       business) are companies that worked with JPL on Mars
       Pathfinder. In particular, he cited ILC Dover, which
       developed Pathfinder's airbags.

       "The problem was, we didn't know enough about airbags to
       write such specifications; the people who build airbags
       didn't know enough about space to be able to respond to any
       such specifications had we written them. We formed a working
       team that combined our expertise in space with their
       expertise in materials and airbag systems to create
       collaboratively the system that got Pathfinder on the surface
       of Mars last July 4.

       "That was a true partnership, and was not the classic way of
       dealing with a contractor. It's that kind of mode, of working
       with external expertise, that's going to allow us to tap into
       the entire capability of this nation to create this program."

          * Innovations in internal implementation. As evidence of
            successful innovations inside of JPL, Stone praised the
            efforts of the seven teams that won Process Improvement
            Awaards last year, citing two as examples.

       The Procurement Requisition Direct Entry Team, comprised of
       Francine Fisher and Virginia Kemp of Section 623, created a
       streamlined, online procurement system that saves time and
       about $170,000 a year for the Lab. "I asked them," Stone
       said, 'What is the biggest challenge you had in doing this?'
       The answer was breaking away from the way it was always
       done."

       The Electronic Parts Acquisition Team improved the
       procurement of space-qualified electronic parts. It created
       an online system that includes 200,000 parts that can be
       ordered and received in two days. It's estimated that the new
       system will save JPL $800,000 a year.

       "Ed Svendsen, the team leader, had a wonderful way of
       describing the challenge," Stone said. "He called it
       'Shrugging off the dead hand of tradition.'"

       "Tradition is important where it is a key to your success,"
       Stone offered. "But it can be an inhibitor when it's getting
       in the way of changes you need to make.

       "I often get asked 'Why can't we slow down the pace of
       change, put it on hold for awhile?' We've been at this
       internal change process for five years, but we're still not
       where we need to be to cope with faster, better, cheaper
       without burning out everyone in the process," he added.

       That's an indication, Stone told the audience, of how
       difficult innovations in implementation are. In the next six
       months, the Develop New Products process and New Business
       Solutions Project will roll out a new set of systems on Lab.
       "We all have to resist the dead hand of tradition so that we
       can remain the best in the world at what we do."

       Stone also said JPL has played a very important role in
       "setting up the circumstances" that have led to the nation's
       reinvestment in NASA's program. "We have made deals and have
       stuck to them," he said. "We do what we say we're going to
       do; we don't go back and ask for more.

       "It's not an accident that space science has grown in the
       last two years in the president's budget," he added. "This is
       a result of clear strategic planning and leadership on the
       part of NASA Administrator Dan Goldin and clear leadership on
       the part of Wes Huntress. Their leadership has made it
       possible for the administration to send to Congress last year
       the first increase in the science budget in years, and this
       year to send back a budget with a still larger increase in
       the out years for space science."

       In answer to an audience question, Stone said JPL is still on
       target for a work force in 2000 of around 5,000 people. "It's
       been a very painful five years in terms of the downsizing
       we've gone through, but fortunately the end is in sight. We
       should concentrate our work force on doing the really
       critical, innovative things--and finding our partners in
       universities, industry and other federal labs--to help us do
       the rest of the program.

       "We still have some downsizing left to go, but once we get
       there the Lab will be in very good shape. I think NASA
       understands that where we're going to end up in a couple of
       years is where we we're going to stay. That's the end of it;
       we've done our job."

       Stone recalled the recent 40th anniversary of Explorer 1--the
       JPL mission that launched the United States into the Space
       Age--and stressed that all space missions since then "have
       been fueled by innovations here at the Lab."

       "The first 40 years were extremely exciting for JPL; the next
       40 can be even more so. It will be hard, will require
       innovation and will be unpredictable, but if anyone can do
       it, we can, and that's the reason we've been asked to do it."