Richard Petty left Chrysler for a one-year fling with a Ford Factory program and the Ford Torino Cobra in 1969. Of all his professional accomplishments, he considered his role in that historic project his finest moment. Romberg was instrumental in developing the Saturn B-1 booster that sent astronauts into outer space, including the first visit to the moon. He worked at NASA throughout the 1960s, helping build America’s space program from postings in Huntsville, Alabama, and New Orleans. He spent his first three years after Cal Poly-SLO as an aerodynamic engineer and flight test engineer at Boeing aviation near Seattle. We should all live as large and accomplish as much. A native of Buckley, Washington, and 1957 graduate of Cal State Poly-San Luis Obispo, the Old Man didn’t miss much during his time on this good earth. He is survived by Bonny, his wife of 62 years sons Kurt, Val and Leif daughter Heidi 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Romberg died two weeks ago at age 85 in his adopted hometown of Mooresville, North Carolina. NASA, in procurement filings, says it expects to issue a final request for proposal for LTV no later than May 26, with a contract award anticipated in late November.Gary Romberg shows off the Plymouth race cars he helped design. Startup Astrolab plans to offer its Flexible Logistics and Exploration (FLEX) rover it is developing for robotic and human missions. Lockheed Martin announced plans in 2021 to work with General Motors on a rover, while Northrop Grumman is working with companies such as Intuitive Machines and Michelin to create a rover. Leidos is one of several companies that have announced plans to propose LTV designs to NASA. “We’ve gotten feedback from a variety of potential commercial and academic partners around payload needs, so we’ve tried to address that as we’ve designed the vehicle.” Pettus said they are designing the rover to accommodate a wide range of payloads, providing them with power, communications and thermal control. They include Roush Industries, Collins Aerospace, Motiv Space Systems and Moog, among others. The team working on the LTV design includes companies with both automotive and aerospace experience. “Another thing that gets us excited is how our organizations are aligned in terms of philosophies and commitments to sustainability and equality.” “The last couple of months we’ve getting to know the Leidos Dynetics team really well,” said Pete Jung, NASCAR senior vice president and chief marketing officer, saying it helped the organization look ahead as it celebrates its 75 th anniversary. “We think there’s a lot of opportunity there.” ![]() “NASCAR is very good at connecting sponsors, and we are excited about what that may mean in terms of our commercial plans for the future and how we can leverage their expertise,” Pettus said. That could allow the company to offer the rover to other users or even seek sponsorships. Industry expects NASA to follow a services model for the LTV project, procuring the rover as a service rather than a more conventional contract to acquire a rover. He cited as one example NASCAR’s work on a new race car design with design principles, like fast and agile maintenance, that is also useful for a lunar rover.Īnother reason for the partnership is commercialization. “Their deep experience and capability in developing high performance vehicles in harsh environments is something that obviously can help us a great deal as we engineer this vehicle,” said Jonathan Pettus, senior vice president for aerospace, defense and civil operations at Dynetics. Leidos executives said they chose to partner with NASCAR on the LTV design for technical and business reasons. ![]() “We’re about to enter a new moon race, except we’re going to enter a moon race with a partner that is really good at going fast, NASCAR,” said Steve Cook, president of Leidos Dynetics Group, during an event at the Leidos exhibit at 38 th Space Symposium where the company revealed a full-scale prototype of the rover. The rover could be used autonomously as well when not needed by astronauts. Leidos unveiled its design April 18 for a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) that can accommodate two astronauts for excursions on the lunar surface starting with the Artemis 5 mission in the late 2020s. COLORADO SPRINGS - Leidos is working with the racing company NASCAR to develop a lunar rover they will offer for an upcoming NASA competition.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |