We wish our former GLXP team members the best of success in this heroic effort!
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Showing posts with label team. Show all posts
Showing posts with label team. Show all posts
Nov 29, 2022
ispace Ready to Send HAKUTO-R Lander to the Moon
Japanese company ispace is ready to make history with its attempt to be the first private company to land a spacecraft on the Moon.
Jun 30, 2012
Jeroen van Straten
Jeroen is an electrical engineer with experience in designing and building electronics for rockets and test benches.
Jeroen graduated for his bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering at Delft University of Technology this year. For the next few years, he will continue his education with a Master's degree in Embedded Systems.
Alongside his studies and White Label Space work, he is active within Delft Aerospace Rocket Engineering, having worked on the electronics for the Dutch CanSat competition (see http://www.cansat.nl/) and Stratos rockets.
Jeroen graduated for his bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering at Delft University of Technology this year. For the next few years, he will continue his education with a Master's degree in Embedded Systems.
Alongside his studies and White Label Space work, he is active within Delft Aerospace Rocket Engineering, having worked on the electronics for the Dutch CanSat competition (see http://www.cansat.nl/) and Stratos rockets.
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Jun 28, 2012
WLS GLXP Team Summit Presentation May 2012
Andrew Barton and Takeshi Hakamada presented this update of White Label Space's progress at the GLXP team summit held in Washington, DC in May 2012.
Dec 14, 2011
Simon O'Reilly
Simon has a keen interest in astronautics, theoretical physics and astronomy and has read extensively on these subjects.
He received a First Class Honours Degree from Trinity College Dublin in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering where he studied various modern manufacturing techniques and processes as well as their organization and management. His final year thesis was on "The Effects of Microjets on Jet Turbulence".
Simon's contact details are:
- email: simon.o.reilly@whitelabelspace.com
- twitter: @oreillsi
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Jul 12, 2011
Kristhian Mason
Kristhian Mason is a member of the White Label Space video editing team.
Kristhian has worked as a professional graphics artist for 14 years, and is specialized in making layouts and retouching pictures.
He is the Creative Director for the Space Safety Magazine of the IAASS (International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety) and ISSF (Internatonal Space Safety Foundation), making the newsletters, flyers and magazine ads.
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Jun 4, 2011
Video - Discussions on Lander Prototype
This technical meeting of the White Label Space engineering team was held on the 19th of May 2011. The discussions were led by Dr Jeremy Fielding, the lead system engineer for the lander, and centered on the question of what should be the next steps after the successful demonstration of the lander mock-up at the Rio Tinto field trials. During the video the team can be seen setting up the lander mock-up to assist the discussions.
Jun 3, 2011
Carmen Felix
Carmen Felix, who participated during the field testing of the lander mock-up in Rio Tinto, Spain is now joining the team as a permanent member. Carmen is an Electronics and Communications Engineer, and holds a Master in Space Science from the International Space University at Strasbourg, France.Carmen will be collaborating with WLS with testing, and with the communications between the lander and the rover and with the ground station.
Carmen has experience working with companies as aT&T and Texas Instruments in the areas of networking protocols, communications and testing. During 2010, she worked at NASA Ames for 8 months as an intern researcher for the Small Satellite Division, at the Mission Design Center. Her professional experience will be valuable for White Label Space.
Carmen has experience in leadership and management, and she also holds a Radio Amateur Technician License, a Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Developer Certification with a Diploma of Excellence, a CCNA certification and different courses of wireless communication, WiMAX, GSM, GPRS and EDGE.
She likes to help education and young people, and currently she managed to send a group of Mexican high school kids to participate in STEP NASA program as the first foreign participants. She is the National Point of Contact in Mexico for Space Generation Advisory Council for the United Nations, and has been participating in different space conferences and symposiums, as the last two ISU annual symposiums, World Space Congress, Americas Space Conference, conferences of the Mexican Space Agency and many others.
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May 28, 2011
How Big is Your Team?
One question has been bugging me for a long time. How do you quantify the 'size' of a team of volunteers preparing a mission to send a robot to the moon?
Scroll down to the bold highlighted sentence about half way down this post if you want to see the first real answer to this question!
The difficulty in giving a good answer is that members come and go over time, and the amount of effort any individual puts in depends on many factors - how busy their day job is, whether they live near to other team members, births of their children, how motivated they are, whether they have skills that we can make effective use of, etc.
What I already knew is that over 240 people have contacted us, sending their resume asking how they can help the White Label Space team. In most cases we were able to assign them to a sub-team or give them a specific task to work on, however that still leaves the problem of keeping track of all those distributed members. So I decided to do a little survey..
The graph below summarizes responses to a survey of the 40 most active team members of White Label Space. I've asked each member to estimate how many hours they put into the team over the last 12 months. (The results are still coming in, so this post might be updated in the future)
As expected for any volunteer project, the distribution of efforts forms a Long-Tail Distribution, with a minority of the members putting in large amounts of effort but a lot of members putting in a small effort. From the 24 members who answered so far (and more answers are expected to come in), the efforts ranged from 816 hours to 0 hours, the latter being a brand new member.
The total effort over the last year was 4906 hours, which corresponds roughly to 2.4 standard full-time working years.
Thus, if we were a normal company, it would still be a rather small one (although 2.4 full-time employees is nothing to sneeze at!). However, in such analysis one should also consider the value that comes from having such a large number of people involved, each bringing their own experience and network to the team, not to mention the fact that they are distributed across more than 10 different countries.
Considering this, it's no surprise that White Label Space has been a strong performer in the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) so far. Our team at Tohoku University is making excellent progress on a fully functional rover prototype, and our Netherlands-based members have built a very realistic and attractive mock-up of the lander, which was deployed at the recent Mars analog field trials in Rio Tinto. Aside from this, we are making steady progress on a realistic and affordable engineering design of our GLXP mission and our Japan Office is preparing some exciting activities that promise to engage a huge audience in that very important and technologically advanced country. Finally, we now have a team of video editors in place making professional video content to communicate our work to the world, engaging potential sponsors and partners.
So don't take quantified answer to the blog post (2.4) too seriously. This team is showing what's possible when 100% pure passion is your rocket fuel and motivation is your oxidizer!
Scroll down to the bold highlighted sentence about half way down this post if you want to see the first real answer to this question!
The difficulty in giving a good answer is that members come and go over time, and the amount of effort any individual puts in depends on many factors - how busy their day job is, whether they live near to other team members, births of their children, how motivated they are, whether they have skills that we can make effective use of, etc.
What I already knew is that over 240 people have contacted us, sending their resume asking how they can help the White Label Space team. In most cases we were able to assign them to a sub-team or give them a specific task to work on, however that still leaves the problem of keeping track of all those distributed members. So I decided to do a little survey..
The graph below summarizes responses to a survey of the 40 most active team members of White Label Space. I've asked each member to estimate how many hours they put into the team over the last 12 months. (The results are still coming in, so this post might be updated in the future)
As expected for any volunteer project, the distribution of efforts forms a Long-Tail Distribution, with a minority of the members putting in large amounts of effort but a lot of members putting in a small effort. From the 24 members who answered so far (and more answers are expected to come in), the efforts ranged from 816 hours to 0 hours, the latter being a brand new member.
The total effort over the last year was 4906 hours, which corresponds roughly to 2.4 standard full-time working years.
Thus, if we were a normal company, it would still be a rather small one (although 2.4 full-time employees is nothing to sneeze at!). However, in such analysis one should also consider the value that comes from having such a large number of people involved, each bringing their own experience and network to the team, not to mention the fact that they are distributed across more than 10 different countries.
Considering this, it's no surprise that White Label Space has been a strong performer in the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) so far. Our team at Tohoku University is making excellent progress on a fully functional rover prototype, and our Netherlands-based members have built a very realistic and attractive mock-up of the lander, which was deployed at the recent Mars analog field trials in Rio Tinto. Aside from this, we are making steady progress on a realistic and affordable engineering design of our GLXP mission and our Japan Office is preparing some exciting activities that promise to engage a huge audience in that very important and technologically advanced country. Finally, we now have a team of video editors in place making professional video content to communicate our work to the world, engaging potential sponsors and partners.
So don't take quantified answer to the blog post (2.4) too seriously. This team is showing what's possible when 100% pure passion is your rocket fuel and motivation is your oxidizer!
***
Apr 28, 2011
Wanted: Marketing and Public Relations Volunteers for our Mission to the Moon
When you think of space you’re probably thinking of rocket scientists, astronauts with the right stuff, rovers roaming on Mars, or maybe just you’re thanking the weather and GPS satellites that give you important guidance on what to wear (will it be sunny or rainy tomorrow?) and how to navigate around town. Once it was the ‘sciences’ that had to get creative to launch the space race and make our lives easier, now the world of communications and media is getting creative to carry us to the next step: Thanks to the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP), space is a lot closer than you think.
Teams from all around the world are competing in the GLXP and White Label Space is making significant progress in building the right know-how and new and exciting equipment for our mission, like our own rover from our Japanese Team, and a moon lander, pioneered and currently undergoing testing by our design team in Europe.
WLS is now looking for bright marketing, public relations and creative sparks who see the potential of space and wish to participate. If you share the vision of WLS and can share it with potential sponsors and news outlets, then we want to hear from you.
For more information, contact our Commercial Manager: simon.drake@whitelabelspace.com
Teams from all around the world are competing in the GLXP and White Label Space is making significant progress in building the right know-how and new and exciting equipment for our mission, like our own rover from our Japanese Team, and a moon lander, pioneered and currently undergoing testing by our design team in Europe.
WLS is now looking for bright marketing, public relations and creative sparks who see the potential of space and wish to participate. If you share the vision of WLS and can share it with potential sponsors and news outlets, then we want to hear from you.
For more information, contact our Commercial Manager: simon.drake@whitelabelspace.com
***
Apr 24, 2011
Opening Space Up to Small and Medium Sized Businesses
Many small parts make the whole, and assembling a mission to compete in the Google Lunar X PRIZE requires the combination of many high-tech parts, in-house developments (like the rover developed by White Label Space in Japan) and sponsorship.
White Label Space recognises that the foundations of nations’ economies rely not on large corporations, but on the millions of Small to Medium Enterprizes (SMEs).
If you want to associate your SME with a truly exceptional 21st century endeavour, then for as little as €100 (tax deductible in some countries), you can sponsor White Label Space, become part of our mission, and receive a Certificate documenting your contribution.
Naturally larger sponsor packages and exposure are available, yet for a small amount you can be part of something great - the next Space Race.
Take a look through our website to learn more about us and how we're assembling our Google Lunar X PRIZE mission - your sponsorship contribution to White Label Space will leverage awareness of your brand far higher than anything on earth.
Sponsorship via a Pay Pal donation can be made HERE.
A Presentation about Sponsoring White Label Space:
White Label Space recognises that the foundations of nations’ economies rely not on large corporations, but on the millions of Small to Medium Enterprizes (SMEs).
If you want to associate your SME with a truly exceptional 21st century endeavour, then for as little as €100 (tax deductible in some countries), you can sponsor White Label Space, become part of our mission, and receive a Certificate documenting your contribution.
Naturally larger sponsor packages and exposure are available, yet for a small amount you can be part of something great - the next Space Race.
Take a look through our website to learn more about us and how we're assembling our Google Lunar X PRIZE mission - your sponsorship contribution to White Label Space will leverage awareness of your brand far higher than anything on earth.
Sponsorship via a Pay Pal donation can be made HERE.
Our Promotional Video:
A Presentation about Sponsoring White Label Space:
***
Mar 5, 2011
Feb 13, 2011
Adriaan Rijkens
Adriaan is a Masters student studying at the Nyenrode Business Universiteit. In 2010 he completed his Bachelor of Engineering in Industrial Engineering & Management at the Professional University of Amsterdam.
Adriaan has a great fascination for the space industry and the commercial space industry in particular. He has set up the Givemeaspaceflight.com foundation and helped with the establishment of the International Space Transport (ISTA).
Adriaan has an entrepreneurial attitude that can underlined by his personal motto: 'Just Do It'.
Members of the media can contact Adriaan at: Adriaan.Rijkens@whitelabelspace.com
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Feb 11, 2011
Jeremy Fielding
Dr Jeremy Fielding is the Lead System Engineer the White Label Space lunar lander.During his 15 years working as a system engineer in the UK aerospace and electronics sectors, Jeremy worked on numerous advanced engineering projects. Some of his more notable roles included being the lead mission systems engineer for penetrator design studies for the Jovian moons and Mars, as well as managing bids and small studies for lunar and deep space missions.
Jeremy received his PhD in 2004 from the Surrey Space Centre on the topic of Mars exploration possibilities using an airborne VTOL (VTVL) platform.
In 2008 Jeremy reached the Level-3 applicant pool of the ESA astronaut programme selection.
***
Nov 16, 2010
Lunar Numbat's TED debut
There are few better ways to spread the word about the achievements of the White Label Space team than through a TED event.
Last month, Australians were treated to TEDxCanberra - an ideas forum based on the original premise of the Technology Entertainment and Design events that began in the US in 1984.
Lunar Numbat team leader Marco Ostini was invited to speak at the inaugural event.
Scroll down to jump straight to the video of Marco's presentation
The Australian team is tasked with, among other things, developing the throttle control technology that will hopefully see the WLS Lunar Lander descend safely to the surface of the moon.Last month, Australians were treated to TEDxCanberra - an ideas forum based on the original premise of the Technology Entertainment and Design events that began in the US in 1984.
Lunar Numbat team leader Marco Ostini was invited to speak at the inaugural event.
Scroll down to jump straight to the video of Marco's presentation
In typical TED style, speakers are given between three and 18 minutes. Marco used his to tell those gathered in the Australian capital "Why the world needs a Lunar Numbat".
(FYI - a numbat is an Australian marsupial that suffers from a lack of publicity in its home country. Marco's team have adopted it as a fitting mascot.)
In a nutshell, he squeezed in a wide range of issues, such as:
- Why space science is essential for ongoing human life and the maintenance
of life on Earth
- How space science has stagnated from where it should be, but latent
desires in many, such as those harnessed by the GLXP, can lead to a
reflowering of risk-taking and innovation
- White Label Space being the only team with significant Australian
presence and their development of one the most well thought out and credible
missions ready for actions
- How sponsoring the WLS Lunar mission would derive a lot more prestige
and marketing clout than the average Formula 1 race; and
- How Lunar Numbat hope to bring Open Source innovations to
space science by supporting WLS.
It's a great get for the Aussie team. The inaugural Canberra event sold out in 48 hours and Marco was invited to share his ideas alongside futurists, leading climate change experts, magicians and even the current Australian of the Year.
Check out the video of his speech in full below:
Nov 12, 2010
Peter Farquhar
Peter Farquhar is White Label Space's lead blogger.
A journalist with 12 years experience across newspapers, magazines and websites, his current role is Technology Editor of Australian website www.news.com.au.
Peter's first mission at News was the addition of a Sci-Tech section to ensure an increasing flow of space-related articles had a home.
"Even so, it's been hard to keep up in 2010," he said. "We've never pushed the boundaries of space exploration faster. Every day delivers an incredible new discovery."
Being able to work with the WLS team is as daunting as it is exciting for Peter.
"The breadth of experience the WLS team has pulled together from across the globe is an amazing achievement in itself," he said.
"There's a lot of stories to tell here. I'm looking forward to it."
Although he has followed the progress of the Lunar X PRIZE since its inception, Peter was particularly drawn to the strong Australian presence at WLS.
"We're lagging well behind the rest of the developed world when it comes to having any form of an official space agency, yet we've still got people determined to be at the top of the game," he said.
"Any opportunity to be show Australian kids they can still get involved in the race to space is worth pursuing."
Peter's favourite space celebrity of 2010 is ZombieSat, with a tip of the hat to US space plane, the X-37B.
You're welcome to contact him with news or feedback anytime at;
peter.farquhar_at_whitelabelspace.com.
A journalist with 12 years experience across newspapers, magazines and websites, his current role is Technology Editor of Australian website www.news.com.au.
Peter's first mission at News was the addition of a Sci-Tech section to ensure an increasing flow of space-related articles had a home.
"Even so, it's been hard to keep up in 2010," he said. "We've never pushed the boundaries of space exploration faster. Every day delivers an incredible new discovery."
Being able to work with the WLS team is as daunting as it is exciting for Peter.
"The breadth of experience the WLS team has pulled together from across the globe is an amazing achievement in itself," he said.
"There's a lot of stories to tell here. I'm looking forward to it."
Although he has followed the progress of the Lunar X PRIZE since its inception, Peter was particularly drawn to the strong Australian presence at WLS.
"We're lagging well behind the rest of the developed world when it comes to having any form of an official space agency, yet we've still got people determined to be at the top of the game," he said.
"Any opportunity to be show Australian kids they can still get involved in the race to space is worth pursuing."
Peter's favourite space celebrity of 2010 is ZombieSat, with a tip of the hat to US space plane, the X-37B.
You're welcome to contact him with news or feedback anytime at;
peter.farquhar_at_whitelabelspace.com.
***
Announcing the Chief Blog-O-Naut
Last month White Label Space issued a call for a blog-o-naut, to lead our blogging efforts. A number of very good candidates responded and after much deliberation we finally selected Peter Farquhar for this role.
Peter is a journalist with 12 years experience across newspapers, magazines and websites, his current role is Technology Editor for the Australian website www.news.com.au. He will use his professional experience to help us tell our story to the world, as we look for sponsors to support our ambitious moon mission.
To support Peter, we are currently putting together a team of dedicated and talented individuals to work on specific publicity and promotion tasks including video production, social media and international translations.
Peter is a journalist with 12 years experience across newspapers, magazines and websites, his current role is Technology Editor for the Australian website www.news.com.au. He will use his professional experience to help us tell our story to the world, as we look for sponsors to support our ambitious moon mission.
To support Peter, we are currently putting together a team of dedicated and talented individuals to work on specific publicity and promotion tasks including video production, social media and international translations.
***
Oct 7, 2010
Blog-O-Naut Wanted!
Did you ever notice that astronauts are fantastic public speakers? There is a reason for that. Their nearly unique role as envoy of humankind makes astronauts the ideal medium to tell the public about the valuable and exciting work being done by the engineers and scientists in their space agencies.
Are you passionate about space?
Do you want to see the inner workings of a well-established team competing in the Google Lunar X PRIZE?
White Label Space is urgently seeking an enthusiastic individual to help us tell our story. Your core activities will be blogging and youtubing using raw content created within the team. We need to keep up a steady steam of output to keep the public engaged so you will also bring to bear your skills at twitter and facebook.
If you think you have the right stuff, send us an email: careers@whitelabelspace.com
We are accepting applications until the end of October. We are interested to see any similar things you've done in the past. This is a volunteer role but with chances to move into a paid position later. All ages, genders and experience levels are welcome.
Are you passionate about space?
Do you want to see the inner workings of a well-established team competing in the Google Lunar X PRIZE?
White Label Space is urgently seeking an enthusiastic individual to help us tell our story. Your core activities will be blogging and youtubing using raw content created within the team. We need to keep up a steady steam of output to keep the public engaged so you will also bring to bear your skills at twitter and facebook.
If you think you have the right stuff, send us an email: careers@whitelabelspace.com
We are accepting applications until the end of October. We are interested to see any similar things you've done in the past. This is a volunteer role but with chances to move into a paid position later. All ages, genders and experience levels are welcome.
***
Oct 3, 2010
Takeshi Hakamada
Takeshi Hakamada is leader of the White Label Space GLXP team and the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of White Label Space Japan, LLC.He has dreamed of developing a commercial space industry since watching Star Wars in his childhood and later at University he became interested in the challenge of financial evaluation during the conceptual design phase.
He earned a Master of Science at Georgia Institute of Technology's Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory (ASDL), where he studied and researched the application of conceptual design methodologies to advanced aerospace systems. He also holds a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from Nagoya University.
Before joining White Label Space, he was a management consultant focusing on strategies and implementation of cost optimization for a variety of Japanese and international companies. He successfully led several projects for clients across many industries, assisting them to save costs.
He was also an organizer for the Yuri’s night Parties in Japan in 2008 and 2009.
***
Sep 20, 2010
White Label Space Japan Office is GO!
Tokyo, 20'th September 2010 - the White Label Space Japan Office made its official launch at the Tokyo Culture Club.
Key members of the Japan Office were present including Professor Kazuya Yoshida (pictured below), Takeshi Hakamada and Taro Asazuma. Video messages from Peter Diamandis and Andrew Barton were also played.
Guests of the event were also invited to try their hand at remotely writing Japanese characters on a simulated lunar surface (see below), inspired by the lunar zen garden concept developed by White Label Space team artist, Ayako Ono.
Japanese speakers can watch the UStream Video of the event (fast-forward to about 17:30 for the start of the presentations).
***
Key members of the Japan Office were present including Professor Kazuya Yoshida (pictured below), Takeshi Hakamada and Taro Asazuma. Video messages from Peter Diamandis and Andrew Barton were also played.
Guests of the event were also invited to try their hand at remotely writing Japanese characters on a simulated lunar surface (see below), inspired by the lunar zen garden concept developed by White Label Space team artist, Ayako Ono.
Japanese speakers can watch the UStream Video of the event (fast-forward to about 17:30 for the start of the presentations).
Sep 9, 2010
WLS Japan Office - Open For Business
The White Label Space team is proud to announce the establishment of our Japanese office.
Led by Takeshi Hakamada, the WLS Japan office will be responsible for coordinating the team's commercial and technical activities in Japan.
Japanese speakers can follow the progress of the new office via the Japanese language blog;
http://whitelabelspacejapanoffice.blogspot.com/
Led by Takeshi Hakamada, the WLS Japan office will be responsible for coordinating the team's commercial and technical activities in Japan.
Japanese speakers can follow the progress of the new office via the Japanese language blog;
http://whitelabelspacejapanoffice.blogspot.com/
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