MEETING MINUTES

A meeting of the AIAA ADS TC was convened at 0900 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA on 16 October 2002. Those in attendance are listed in the following table:

Glen Brown (Chairman) Alec Dyatt Bert Engstrom Maurice Gionfriddo Jeff Hogue Richard Howard Dean Jorgensen John LeBlanc Timothy Lott Robert Meyerson Carl Peterson Tom Rivellini James Strickland Tony Taylor Jim Warrick

General

Glen Brown chaired the meeting. Following a call to order, a brief introduction of the attendees occurred followed by selection of a recording secretary. Recording secretary for this meeting was Tim Lott. The order of business included addressing the topics stated in the formal meeting agenda plus several off-agenda items. A summary of those items discussed is presented herein.

TC Roster & Membership Discussion

The current ADS TC Membership Roster was distributed for comments and/or corrections. Each attending member as required annotated the master roster. No other discussion was noted regarding the roster or membership.

Presentation of Previous Meeting Minutes

Minutes from the 18 June 2002 ADS TC meeting conducted at U.S. Army Natick Soldier Center, Natick, MA were reviewed and approved as written by a unanimous vote.

Treasurer's Report

There was no formal treasurer's report as Richard Benney was absent from this meeting. It was noted that the TC was in receipt of the check from St. Louis University regarding the Parachute Design Short Course. In addition, the treasury balance was noted to be in a very favorable condition. Brief discussion occurred regarding the need to define possibilities for the TC to fund specific, value-added endeavors pertinent to ADS technology. Note SAS discussion below.

Other AIAA Business

Student Activities Committee: The Student Activities Committee (SAC) was discussed per the letter authored by Stephen Brock (AIAA Student Programs) and Sathya Gangadharan (SAC Design Competition Chairman.) This was discussed as something the TC should consider for the future. The topic of "Precision Air Drop" was put forward as a candidate topic to consider. This topic could easily embrace many ADS technology attributes focusing on impact accuracy, velocity control and minimization at impact, fundamental parachute aerodynamics, structures, controls, etc. It is a topic that could easily foster interesting competition. Tom Rivellini took the action to contact the AIAA SAC program administrator with the objective of understanding the mechanics and other details associated with our TC's potential participation in this program. Some criteria to consider were noted as: potential cash incentive, incentives through notoriety, best student paper award, teaming with other TCs. For the near-term competition abstracts are required by 18 November 2002.

ADS 2002 Year In Review Article

It was noted that Dean Jorgensen wrote the '2002 Year In Review' article for Aerospace America on behalf of the ADS TC. This was accomplished with little lead-time. Thanks were given to Dean by the TC chairman for his outstanding support in this endeavor.

David Throckmorton Letter

Glen Brown distributed an 8 Oct 02 e-mail letter from David Throckmorton (TAC Chairman). In summary, the letter stated that over the past year only one candidate's name has appeared on the AIAA national election ballot for the position of President of the Institute. His contention is that one should not run unopposed. He's circulating a petition for advocating competition for the AIAA Presidency. The petition was circulated at the meeting and signed, as each member desired. The TC took no further action. Glen Brown will submit the signed petition.

Homepage Team & E-Mail Distribution List

Mike Accorsi (not in attendance) provided information that the TC e-mail list included 320 addresses. There is an open solicitation to forward other addresses to Mike. Individuals don't have to be AIAA members.

On the ADS TC website "Call for Papers" to be replaced by 'Conference Program'. Conference data will be shown. Seminar data is required so it can be posted. J Strickland suggested a 'related links page' as well as utilizing members company logos. The image page on the web site also requires updating. J. Strickland offered ideas to organize. The newsletter will evolve to a web-based document. It was noted that images could be links.

The question was asked whether all ADS TC papers exist in digital form or are they titles only ? J. Strickland to contact Mike Accorsi to check.

Recommendation to include a 'History' category on the ADS web site. Glen Brown to speak with Mike Accorsi regarding the scope of this category.

Database Team

Mo Gionfriddo noted that Linda Hall Library (LHL) is in receipt of all Karl Doherr's documents.

LHL has received nothing from U.S. Army Natick. R. Benney proposed submittal of Natick papers to LHL on CD. LHL rejected CD format. Natick currently possesses four CDs full of reports.

Sandia requires some reports to be reviewed due to LIMDIS criteria. Carl Petersen noted that Sandia possesses multiple copies of some reports. He desires a list from LHL to determine what titles they already possess so that a determination can be made what titles need to be considered from Sandia. Mo Gionfriddo took the action to contact LHL and establish that list. Suggestions were solicited regarding the extra copies.

The AIAA Balloon TC is submitting their data/reports to LHL.

Mo discussed LHL regarding funding several students at LHL to extract report keywords and enter into a database. Natick and Sandia reports should be delivered to LHL before this happens.

Sandia ready to box-up 85% of their open documents to send to LHL. They desire LHL to return duplicates. LHL's policy is to destroy all duplicates. This necessitates a sorting of Sandia documentation before delivery to LHL.

Discussion addressed finding an intern to sort documentation at Sandia. Also an intern/s needed to print and bind all documentation at Natick. Plus, an intern/s needed to develop bibliography and key words for the entire collection. Committee agreed in principal to fund at the amount of $5,000.

USNAWC, China Lake, CA also has a substantial collection, which they are reluctant to send to LHL. This collection included the original papers by T. Knacke. No further discussion of this issue occurred. There is currently no representation on the TC from China Lake.

Specs & Standards

Specs & Standards will be dropped from the agenda until a new project is identified by unanimous vote.

Newsletter Team

The newsletter was dropped from the agenda from now on by a unanimous vote. The newsletter will now reside on the ADSTC web site.

Discussion occurred regarding the merits of a written newsletter specifically for high- level persons to 'sell' the need for parachute technology. Convince high-level people that parachute business is important and deserving of funding. No resolution was noted regarding whether a written document was required at some point during the calendar year to address these criteria.

Short Course Team

The final summary report was delivered to Glen Brown from Jean Potvin. Report will be made available at the next ADS TC meeting. The short course included 48 attendees and provided 2 scholarships. The attendee ratings were 'high'. Jean provided comments regarded suggested improvements to the short course including revision of the course content to include gliding parachutes and focus on lateral dynamics. The short course made a substantial profit contributing approximately $7,000. to the TC treasury.

17th ADS TC Seminar & Conference Administrative
Seminar

1. In general the seminar planning process appears stalled. There is concern that the establishment and concurrence of the seminar topics, speaker definition, presentation plan of speaker and overall seminar planning flow is running late. Detained regarding this topic are noted below.
2. Mark Heflin (not in attendance) committed to helping with the seminar.
3. Seminar Introduction is currently planned to be Ken Heindel with Dean Wolf.
4. Current planned agenda focuses on materials (narrow fabric, broad cloth, braided chord, and other fabric/finish topics.
5. Issues: Topics don't represent new material. In order to attract a substantial attendance the material need to focus on 'what's new'. In addition, the planning time period for this event is rapidly diminishing. Ken hasn't been in attendance for two TC meetings.
6. Tony Taylor strongly suggested new topics and speaker candidates. He also commented about investigating some of the new fibers and advanced fabrics from manufacturers such as: Celenese, Dupont, Honeywell, Toyobo. Focus should be on high performance, low cost, new fabric manufacturing processes. Discussion also noted new materials from Langley, Dow Chemical (silicones, composites, laminations, thermal protection, etc.), NASA Ames (coated fabrics), Clemson (fabric research), Triton, etc. Other suggested topics included 3-DL ala North Sails and nanotubes.
7. CRITICAL ISSUE: Seminar needs to be firmed-up in EIGHT weeks commensurate with the overall conference documentation submittal schedule.
   1. 15 Dec: Send Conference Program to AIAA to meet publication date for Aerospace America.
   2. 12 Mar: Draft manuscripts.
   3. 9 Apr: Final manuscripts.
8. Tony Taylor accepted the action to create a questionnaire regarding materials disclosure amongst members ASAP

Conference

1. The 17 th AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems Technology Conference and Seminar is planned for May 19-22, 2003 at The Doubletree Hotel Monterey, California. Logistics and fiscal planning is progressing smoothly. A telecon with Bruno from AIAA HQ affirmed the basic conference logistics milestones criteria (Awards Banquet, Decorations, Speakers Breakfast, Coffee Breaks, Room Rental A/V charges and other hotel costs).
2. Significant discussion centered around the format for the conference proceedings. Preferred format is for bound volumes. Secondary preference is CD format. Least preferred is AIAA's new concept of conference paper availability on-line on a quarterly basis. It was stated that AIAA plans on eliminating the first two publication options. AT this time our TC was successful in obtaining bound documents.
3. Fees: Conference registration fee is anticipated to be on the order of $530. Seminar fee is likewise anticipated to be on the order of $225 for members and $250 for non-members.
4. Plans for the Industry Reception are not finalized at this time.
5. Hotel room rates were quoted at approximately: $164 per day double occupancy (civilian) and $99 per day double occupancy (government).
6. 75 abstracts were received. These were discussed by the TC on the previous evening. By 17 November review will be complete and accept/deny letters mailed to the authors. The overall plan is for approximately 66 papers encompassing about 11 conference presentation sessions. Additional papers may be accepted to support a proposed second plenary session on the last day of the conference as well as for other contingencies. An action was given to Mike Accorsi to ascertain if we have a Mission Overview Paper on the Mars Exploratory Rover.

Adjourn

The meeting adjourned at approximately 4:30 PM.

JPL Tour

The following morning, 17 October, a tour of the JPL campus was provided by our host. Most of the attendees took the tour, which proved to be most interesting and informative. Thanks to JPL for hosting the TC and to Tom Rivellini of JPL for coordinating the meeting and tour logistics.