Montana State Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering Brock LaMeres has returned to Montana after a trip to Florida to watch a lunar launch up close.
“Launches goes up, you see the fireball and you see the full moon and it looked like it was going directly to the moon, it was really cool,” LaMeres said.
Bolted to the side of the craft, called a lander, is a RadPC, a computer the size of a slice of bread developed at MSU to withstand harsh environments including radiation in outer space.
“This is a hands on experience that our students get. We’ve had 100 undergrads work on this over the last 15 years,” LaMeres said.
The computer currently orbiting earth is running a test program, and the data they are receiving back on earth is a status of the computer’s health, how the computer is doing and recovering from inevitable failures.
“We’re watching our radiation sensors go ‘there’s a lot of stuff out here’ but so far our computer is operating as we’d expect,” LaMeres said.
If things continue to go well, the computer could continue to be used in space for other missions, but there are also broad applications back on Earth for computers that are more resilient to extreme conditions and cyber secure.
“It’s for the power grid, and hospitals and applications like that, that kind of keep society running,” LaMeres said.
The computer is on a 45 day journey first circling the earth, then the moon before landing on the moon, where it will stay forever with some Montana mementos included on the computers extra memory space.
“Maybe someday someone will find this lander and will open it up and watch a video of President Cruzado saying hello,” LaMeres said with a chuckle.
You can find more about the mission, and results at www.montana.edu/moon
