The day started with an open forum on weight control. The forum was very interactive with a lot of great points across the industries. Conversation included how we, mass property engineers, see things differently and we need speak up on mass properties, how smaller companies or subcontractors may need the support to ensure they are going in the right direction, remembering that smaller companies likely don’t have a mass properties engineer, incentives vs. penalties, cost of a pound or the value of a pound, and tying weight to performance. Lot of other great points and conversations occurred. These forums are great for everyone to see all the different point of views across the industries and across companies big and small.
Dan Otlowski of Space Electronics started off Aerospace Session 1 with a presentation on measuring weight and CG of manned spacecraft. Damian Yanez presented to the group the Welcome to SAWE presentation he has worked on. The presentation goes into detail the benefits to SAWE for both new members and potential corporate sponsors. This is open for members to use and chapters — great way to try and reel in new members! Amanda Cutright, NASA Langley Research Center, finished out the morning with a presentation on the Ascent Abort 2 for the Orion spacecraft. We do not want have crew members launched without the ability to abort. AA-2 is the next flight test in the exploration systems development program.
The afternoon Aerospace Session started with Dudley Cate, NAVAIR (retired) provided a presentation on weight and design data for WWII era aircraft. I am personally looking forward to being able to read this paper! Larry DiSano, Ensinger, finished the session with a presentation on Thermoplastic Composites for small parts.
We can’t say it enough, thank you to all our vendors who presented throughout the week!
What?! My vendor presentation on behalf of the Aerospace Corporation did not make the highlights?!? Ah, the injustice of it all.
Later that evening, the Awards banquet was held. Congratulations to Errol Oguzhan for earning the status of Honorary Fellow, Amanda Cutright for earning the status of Fellow, and Nick Marickovich for earning the status of Fellow. These are all highly deserving individuals and pillars of our society.