Dr. Jim Henry is taking the work of the University to new heights, far above the earth.
From the Johnson Space Center, Henry witnessed a test of the EXPRESS Payload Simulator software he specifically developed for the International Space Station during a flight of space shuttle Atlantis in May 2010.
Earth-bound researchers who must communicate with equipment in their laboratories use the Internet with web browsers and file sharing to remotely control lab equipment. For 15 years, Henry has been a leader in these activities, creating the first undergraduate engineering labs in the world to have remote operation capabilities.
Boeing Corporation, a NASA contractor, hopes to make this same familiar interface available to researchers who are working on the International Space Station (ISS). When Boeing learned of Henry’s capabilities with his remote laboratories work at UTC, he was asked to do the same for the ISS.
“My part of the project was to develop a prototype LabVIEW program that will be contained on the laptop computer collecting data on the ISS,” Henry said. “I also developed a ground-based LabVIEW program that sends commands to and receives responses from the laptop on the ISS.”
LabVIEW is a software platform made by National Instruments Company especially for laboratory control and data acquisition. The EXPRESS Payload Simulator was tested on the ISS simulator in Huntsville, Alabama, in February and it worked perfectly.
