THE LANGLEY
AERO ACADEMY PAGE

2012 ACADEMY APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN

www.academyapp.com
All applications must be completed by 5 pm, February 6, 2012

Students who are accepted will be notified on or before March 1, 2012.

The NASA Aeronautics Academy at Langley offers an immersive, integrated, multi-disciplinary opportunity for students with career aspirations in the national aeronautics enterprise. The academy will help prepare aspiring young professionals for employment in aeronautics by providing opportunities for direct science and engineering experience with an awareness of the complex managerial, political, financial, social, and human issues faced by current and future aerospace programs.

The Aeronautics Academy students will receive training in integrated systems research, project management, leadership, teamwork and multi-disciplinary collaboration. Students will work as a team on a multi-faceted problem as guided by professional scientists and engineers. In addition to students' exposure to NASA, they will also gain broader exposure to aeronautics through visits to industry and other aeronautics facilities.

The academy experience includes a series of subject matter expert lectures and/or short courses, lunches with senior leaders, and focused discussions with program and project engineers. Participants must be enrolled in Aeronautical, Aerospace Engineering or other related engineering disciplines. This is an intense, rigorous summer program for the entire team. It is not the typical 9 to 5 summer research experience where individuals work one on one with a mentor.

At the completion of the project, students will present their findings to NASA leaders at four centers via video conferencing and/or in person to NASA Headquarters Officials. During the course of the academy, students may have opportunities to visit other NASA, industry or federal laboratories. A NASA Technical report may be published from the project.

Desired Attributes:

• Demonstrated ability to work successfully as part of a team.
• Leadership qualities and a desire to pursue a career in aeronautics.
• College/Academic Level at time of Internship or Fellowship: 3rd year undergraduate (Junior) through second year graduate student
• Academic Disciplines/Majors – Aerospace/Aeronautical Engineering. Related engineering majors considered

Eligibility:

GPA 3.2 minimum, U.S. citizenship. Junior or senior undergraduate or first or second year graduate; high academic standing, two reference letters from faculty associated with applicant’s academic major, and a demonstrated interest in Aeronautics as a career.

Dates for Academy: June – August, 10 weeks.

Apply at http://www.academyapp.com before January 23, 2012

Choose NASA Aeronautics Academy at Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA
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AirSpaceV2.pdf

SAIE.pdf

Summer 2012 Team Project will support the NASA Airspace Systems Program.

Aeronautics Academy students at Langley will work with mentors in the NASA Airspace Systems Program to support up to two technical challenges, Accelerating Interval Management Technology Transfer and investigating a test environment for Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) Concepts. Students who apply to this project should familiarize themselves with the NASA Air Space Systems Program goals. They should also familiarize themselves with the current Federal Aviation Administration regulations on air traffic management.

Technical Challenge 1: Thus far, it has been envisioned that interval management (the separation and sequencing of aircraft in flight) would reside at flight deck. However, such capability may reside outside the flight deck and still provide the speed advisories and other information necessary to execute interval management using advanced networking/cloud concepts. Such architecture may reduce the cost of interval management integration with flight deck and provide much needed capability to demonstrate benefits of interval management. The goal of this project is to evaluate alternate approaches for implementing interval management capabilities, identify pros and cons of each approach, provide functional requirements for each, and recommend the most preferred approach and it's applicable scenarios. This activity will support Airspace System Program's priority area of Air Traffic Management Technology Demonstration.

Technical Challenge 2: Test Environment for ADS-B Concepts (TEAC)

Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) is a surveillance architecture that may enable transformational changes to the National Airspace System (NAS) in the future. Air Traffic Management (ATM) concepts of operation that rely on ADS-B and their enabling automation and crew interface technologies have been developed using analysis and simulation over the last fifteen years. It is now time to begin testing and refining these concepts in flight. Unfortunately, the costs associated with equipping many aircraft with ADS-B systems and other avionics equipage makes in-flight validation difficult. Both the airborne technologies and the airborne systems standards will be updated based on results of in-situ validation and refinement. It is impractical to equip aircraft with production systems that will become obsolete as a result of the testing. Currently-available production systems will also have limited value to owners of the aircraft since most advanced concepts of operation are not approved for revenue-producing flights. Therefore, NASA proposes to develop an in-situ test environment for advanced ATM concepts that involve ADS-B. The test environment will be provided and maintained by NASA as a national asset. It will bridge the gap between R&D and NAS implementation over the next decade. This test environment will provide equipage and software that emulates the functions of an end-state system that relies on current and potential future ADS-B functionality. Aircraft providers will be able to participate in NASA/FAA in-situ validation trials and experiments by allowing TEAC equipage to be installed on the aircraft on a temporary basis. TEAC may combine cloud computing concepts with existing capabilities such as the airborne internet, Aircraft Communications and Reporting System (ACARS), and ADS-B ground-based transceivers to provide an ADS-B surveillance environment to an emulated or real flight deck environment. TEAC will also provide computing platforms and installed NASA automation and display technologies. Some of these platforms will be ground-based and others will be resident on each flight deck. If necessary, a dedicated TEAC air-ground data-link system will be used to transfer data between the ground and airborne elements. The Aero Academy project will investigate technical feasibility of the TEAC concept described above, perform a preliminary system design, estimate system development and operational costs, and develop high level concepts of use for a planned NASA field trial.

Questions can be sent to elizabeth.b.ward@nasa.gov

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Past Academy Participants:

NASA Langley Aeronautics Academy for the summer of 2011:

Eric Boekeloo, University of Michigan

Anthony Favaloro, Mississippi State University

Timothy Harris, Purdue University

Luke Humphrey, Montana State University

Brandon Johnson, Stanford University

Troy Lake, Wichita State University

Collin McAtee, Auburn University

Kimberly Scheider, Old Dominion University

Yukiko Shimizu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Barrett Tirey, University of Kentucky