NSBE - Conference 2012 - (Page 22)

dr. Bryan Reid of MIT Lincoln Laboratory Enlightening Satellite Science and technology By Peter Slavin uring his high school years in rural Michigan, where he was raised by his mother, Bryan Reid worked so hard and smart in a grocery store job that the manager slipped him a $100 bonus during his first summer and later made him produce manager. A NASA internship when he was a college freshman set him on his career course: aerospace engineering. Today, Bryan M. Reid, now Ph.D., is still exceeding high expectations, at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Mass. Recently, he helped develop a space-based laser system that will use beams of light to send data home from the orbit called “the geo belt,” 22,000 miles above the Earth. Dr. Reid headed a team responsible for designing, building and delivering the hardware and installing d Dr. Reid helped develop a space-based laser system that will use beams of light to send data home from the orbit called “the geo belt,” 22,000 miles above the Earth. it on an experimental satellite. He designed and delivered the optical system that focuses laser light into a beam. It was end-to-end engineering, and Dr. Reid found no job too small. “I turn screws if I have to,” he says. Dr. Reid’s team has already installed their device on the spacecraft, and it probably will be flown next year. The system will enable a large volume of data to flow from the satellite — data such as photos of the Earth, temperature readings to help improve weather forecasting, and measurements of the surface of the polar ice caps to track the effects of climate change. Dr. Reid says these applications are just the tip of the iceberg and that the technology could be used 22 • nsbe magazine • convention 2012 by any type of satellite: weather, GPS, surveillance or military. It’s modular and simple to install. In five years, he says, everyone who follows the developments of space technology will have heard what laser communications are doing. On his first day at Lincoln Laboratory in 2009 — fresh out of the University of Michigan, where he earned a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. — Dr. Reid was handed the task of creating the spacecraft’s payload. He was given one month to do the initial design, “an insane timetable,” he says. But he met it, and his responsibility on the project mushroomed. Dr. Reid believes he was initially tapped because in graduate school, he took a challenging electric propulsion project from design to delivery to the U.S. Air Force. His research group was working to perfect Hall Effect thrusters — which have taken spacecraft beyond the solar system — so they can be used routinely. He explains it this way: “When you watch ‘Star Trek’ or ‘Star Wars,’ they say, ‘Turn on the warp drive,’ and you see that blue stream of light from the back of the starship. That’s quite literally what we would do in the laboratory.” Only reaching warp speed with the thrusters is still fiction. Dr. Reid describes laser communication as a signal like Morse Code or a lantern (“one if by land, two if by sea”), however, the laser is turned on and off several million times a second to encode data. Telescopes are used to pick up the faint amounts of the light sent over vast distances. Because of their concentrated signal, Dr. Reid says, current laser devices increase the speed of data transmission 10 or 20 times over traditional radio frequency communications and can decrease power consumption as much as 10 times. It’s like “upgrading these spacecraft from dialup to high-speed Internet,” he says. Bored on weekends when he first joined Lincoln Laboratory, Dr. Reid succeeded in establishing a social network for new employees. He wrote a charter for the group, got the lab director’s approval and formed a committee. Members attend monthly events, ranging from mixers and bowling to volunteering at food banks. Always an achiever, Dr. Reid is benefiting Lincoln Laboratory by improving communications on two fronts. ■ www.nsbe.org http://www.nsbe.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NSBE - Conference 2012

NSBE - Conference 2012
Table of Contents
Passing the Torch
The Programs Zone
Membership News
NSBE Mourns the Loss of Mario Church, Former National Chair
NSBE Makes STEM Education Pledge to the Clinton Global Initiative
SEEK 2012 Update
Kevin Austin of TEMA
Courtney Skinner of GE
William S. Redmond III of NAVAIR
Dr. Bryan Reid of MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Janelle Johnson of PGW
Tyrone Strozier of General Dynamics C4 Systems
Rashad Nelson of ITW
International News
NSBE Calendar
Things to Do in Pittsburgh
Cummins Scores Big at NSBE Conferences
Golden Torch Award Winners
The Professional’s Perspective
The Engineering Work Force, 2012 Supply, Demand and Diversity
On the Edge
AE Members on the Move
Employer Profiles
Advertisers Index

NSBE - Conference 2012