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Communications geniuses: Mike “Mountain Dew” Down, Marc Seibert, Mike Miller

By Rafferty Pendery

Jenn Biddle - Science backroom

I’m so excited to be officially joining the PLRP team this year as part of the science team. I got excited about astrobiology in graduate school and after my PhD, was a NASA Astrobiology Institute postdoctoral fellow. When I became a professor, I kept looking for ways to stay involved in NASA and astrobiology science. I collaborate with the NASA Astrobiology Institute at Penn State University and now am part of the PLRP team!

I typically do deep sea research, so the PLRP approach of using manned submarines is not too unusual to me. What is unusual is that we’re taking an analog mission approach to the science and exploration – complete with a mobile mission command center. I’ve been really impressed with the amount of infrastructure that the team has had to create in order to do their work, including setting up wifi in remote places and running video feeds across miles. Typically my research done on a ship has communications already on it – we just hop on and do science. Coming to a remote (and beautiful!) site in British Columbia certainly presents challenges.

Today I got my full immersion into PLRP science and headed up the science backroom team for the third dive in Kelly Lake. One disadvantage of a single manned sub is that only one person is seeing and observing things in real time. Maybe they can take a video, but the rest of us might wait hours to see it. That means decisions are slowed and science might be impeded. So this year the team designed a way to have a sub tethered to a cable, sending video feeds to the surface – and then the coms team has been able to shoot video back to the mobile mission command center. What this means is that many of us scientists can sit in comfort and see and hear what the pilot of the sub is observing. That way we can confer on what we are seeing immediately, add extra sets of eyes to a busy pilot and give advice or opinions on what is happening. Really what we did was sit back and go “Cool!” when a lovely microbialite would pop up on the screen.

We additionally got a true mission-feel when we started doing delayed communications. If an astronaut is off of the Earth, it takes a while to talk to them! So even though our sub pilot was only a few kilometers away, we gave ourselves a delay to see how things would go. Not surprisingly, it did seem easier – doesn’t your job go better when your “boss” stops interrupting you? But we’ll see how well it works when we actually want samples. Maybe 10 brains are better than one – maybe not! It’s part of this week’s experiments. My final experiments won’t be done for a while. We are collecting samples from Pavilion and Kelly Lakes to continue to describe the microbial communities that are in the microbialites. My group is specifically interested in the phototrophic (light-harvesting) communities, who we expect are driving the distinct shapes we see in these structures. Our work is in progress, so now updates yet – but watch for later updates as we start to unravel the mysteries of these beautiful and mysterious microbialites!

Written By: Jennifer Biddle

Inside the MMCC

Inside the MMCC

Bill keeping - comunications, MMCC

Darlene Lim (PI) - Inside the MMCC - there are million ideas going on inside her head right now

On the way back from Kelly Lake, we swung by Pavilion Lake to take some shots of the live sub operations underway. This is a very beautiful part of the world.

Next year the team will be diving into a lake called Kelly Lake, and potentially Pavilion Lake at the same time.  This creates a challenge for the communications team.  Both sites must have broadband access to the Space Network Research Federation (SNRF) and the Internet, and be able to communicate from site to site at all times.

Satellite connectivity is great, but in this environment the “terrain mask” (steep rise of the terrain all around us) makes it difficult to hit a satcom “bird” in the sky from these high northern latitudes.  On top of this, satellite transponder time can be expensive (especially considering the amount of “megahertz” or transponder we need!), and adds a significant “latency” to the communications link (in both directions) because the satellites are orbiting so far above the Earth.  This latency can cause problems for some of the operations conducted by this team, and terrestrial interfaces tend to have very low latency.

We took a Trackstick with us in the helicopter, and you can see the path we flew here (thanks to Google Earth!)

So we took off in a helicopter in Lillooet, and flew to Kelly Lake to visit and survey the terrestrial (ground/mountain-based) communications options for communications near the lake.  If we can avoid using a satcom link, we’ll have greater bandwidth and network performance at the 2011 test operations.

We found several options for connectivity or relay on a few mountains surrounding Kelly Lake, and even some options to link the two lakes together for next year’s mission.  This begins a year’s worth of planning “now”.  ; )

- Marc

Pavilion Lake, looking south

One of the DeepWorker chase boats, looking south.

The PLRP 2010 field season has come to a close and I am both saddened by the fact that operations are finished for another year but excited by the prospect of adding the data we’ve collected this year to our growing body of knowledge about this unique lake. I am in awe of the work that has been done by this amazing team and of how much we’ve grown, while maintaining the sense of adventure and camaraderie that to me, helps to define the PLRP.

We’ve taken great strides towards answering many of our research questions and in the process, with every answer we have come up with many more questions that will keep the PLRP team occupied for quite some time. Fortunately, our family continues to grow and every year we welcome new individuals who bring a unique perspective and desire to tease out the mysteries Pavilion has to offer. We have also been blessed this year by the addition of two little members to the PLRP family, Darlene Lim’s daughter Amelia and Greg Slater’s son Joseph. We look forward to the day when they are exploring the lake alongside us.

DeepWorker Pilots and Nuytco Team: 2010

The PLRP provides a wealth of research opportunities, and not just those focused on understanding the processes leading to the formation of the structures at Pavilion Lake but also to understanding fundamental biological, chemical and physical processes. The research contributions from our participating scientists and graduate students have resulted in a number of recent publications and are essential to increasing our understanding of Earth and astrobiological systems. We’re very proud of the role that the PLRP has played in developing operational technologies and protocols that not only help us meet our science objectives but provide important input into future space science missions.

With the addition of our two newest scientist pilots, astronauts Chris Hadfield and Stan Love, we had 34 DeepWorker missions over 10 days of operations. This year we were aided greatly in our pre-season flight planning by the wonderful team from NASA Ames led by Matt Deans and David Lees who developed an amazing flight planning tool that enabled us to search images and flight paths from previous years while building flight plans in Google Earth. Flights this year were planned to collect images of the remaining unexplored regions of the lake, to record detailed images of areas of interest identified from 2008 and 2009 data and to use the submersibles in combination with other analytical tools such as a conductivity, temperature and depth (CTD) instrument and our autonomous underwater vehicle(s) (AUV). Our ability to review post-flight video data in the field, an effort pioneered in 2009, added greatly to our productivity as this information was used immediately by the science backroom team to modify existing flight plans to best optimize our data collection. As part of the daily flight debriefs, we have also continued to apply metrics associated with scientific productivity to understand factors that influence scientific exploration. New this year to the DeepWorker flight repertoire were long ~ 5 hour flights and two night flights to investigate the grazing activity that we suspect may occur in the lake. To add to the innovations this year, Nick Wilkinson designed a fantastic, interactive program for use in classifying the microbialite images. This new tool will allow us to efficiently organize and process our field data over the coming months. Stay tuned for updates.

The Amazing Pavilion Lake Research Project Team: 2010!

In case our DeepWorker operations didn’t keep us busy enough, we had a number of other important activities included in the field schedule this year. The UBC and University of Delaware AUV teams produced fantastic images of the lake bottom that were often used to compliment the DeepWorker flights and give us a better picture of where interesting structures and features are in the lake. Numerous SCUBA dives were performed by our intrepid team of divers to collect water and microbialite samples that were shared between various research groups in an effort to combine and compliment analytical findings. These samples will be characterized from a virology, microbial lipid, isotopic and genetic point of view to provide more information about the role of biology in the formation of the microbialites and what biosignatures may be left behind. Water samples were collected from nearby lakes including Crown, Turquoise, Pear and Kelly Lake to continue to help us put Pavilion Lake in context. Kelly Lake, which also hosts microbialites and has been an area of interest to the PLRP team for many years, was also the focus of significant AUV activities this year. Microbial mats were once again collected from the Cariboo Plateau lakes and giant pancakes were eaten by all (well, almost all). As a new participatory activity this year, our visiting teacherswere given the task of selecting a SCUBA dive based on their understanding of the research questions of interest (on their first day no less!). I’m happy to report that they eagerly interviewed members of the team before presenting their selected dive and rationale to the group for inclusion in the next day’s diving schedule. Community Day was another great success this year with the team happy to show off our work and answer questions from the many visitors we had to the site. Busy indeed!

We plan on continuing our updates throughout the year as we analyze samples and work through the amazing amount of data that were collected. Thanks to all who have read about our activities and through this process, have joined in our adventure. See you next year!

~ Allyson

For the past 10 days we have been making real time maps of all of the sub operations at Pavilion Lake. To do this, we have written some software to generate KML files to load into Google Earth. The Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA Ames has a lot of experience with ground data systems for NASA missions like the MER rovers, robotic earth analog field tests like the Robotic Recon test in northern Arizona in June, disaster response applications, and the Gigapan camera system, we were able to put together a set of tools to support sub tracking and mapping using a lot of existing software. We call the collection of tools and processes the “Surface Data System.”

Pavilion Lake 2009 Data Map

We started with importing overlays of the bedrock geology from British Columbia Geological Survey (BCGS), as well as sonar bathymetry and sonar backscatter maps that show depth of the lake and structure of the bottom. These provide context for flight planning and for setting expectations for what we will find during the flights. In real time during the submarine flights, we get sub position every 5 seconds from the navigation computer on the chase boat. We use that to track the sub by periodically writing out updated KML files and automatically refreshing them in Google Earth as network links. A submarine icon shows the current location of the sub, and a compass rose shows bearings to indicate which way to go to reach the next waypoint. Google Earth also provides lots of measurement tools, annotation tools, and other built-in functions that we can use to annotate and analyze the map. All of this information is saved to a shared filesystem so that everyone at the camp has access to all of the same map data.

We have established an operations role on the support vessels which we call the “Science Stenographer”. That person’s job is to listen in on the voice loop and transcribe any significant observations in real time. Observations worth calling up to the surface immediately appear on the map as icons that you can click on to read the date, time, lat/long, and what was said.

My reflection in the monitor showing the stenography program

In addition, the submarines are recording video continuously. The video recorder also has an “event” button that can mark the timestamp of a significant event on the video. In post-processing, we cross-correlate the timestamps to get position, and put a preview image and compressed video clip into the map as well.

These maps have been very useful for operations, for post-flight analysis, and for planning the next set of activities. After the flights are over, the science back room immediately has the flight track as-flown and georeferenced notes from the pilots. After some video post-processing (which takes some time simply due to the quantity of data: over 25 GB of video from each flight) the video clips and video stills are georeferenced and in the map. This information has been used to modify or create flight plans in real time. As an example, one morning Margarita identified interesting sampling locations during her flight. The post-flight map was immediately used to create a second flight plan to send Ricky to those locations for sample collection that same afternoon. It has also been interesting to see all of the flights and notes and images on one map simultaneously. The team realized before the end of the field season that there were areas of the lake that had not been covered and could plan accordingly.

Georeferenced notes attached to the flight tracks in Google Earth

Without this real time information procesing and integration, it would have been too late to go back and investigate those areas during the field season. Those flight plans would have to wait for another year. In a field setting with a lot of logistics overhead and a short duration for field work, understanding the big picture of operations quickly is a big time saver.

Georeferenced tree image in Pavilion Lake

After the field season is over, the map data will be used by the team to analyse and correlate information from across the lake and across different flights to support their research, and to plan next year’s activities. All of the observations and information gathered this year bring up new questions and new hypotheses, and there is always more to study in this lake.

The images in this post show a few different views of map screens. There is also a

KMZ file that you can download and open in Google Earth to see one of our flight plans and watch the time lapse animated flight track for the actual submarine positions flight as it was flown that day. Try setting the playback speed to the minimum for best results. Enjoy!

- Matt

DOWNLOAD THE KMZ FILE

Andrew on the deck

As happens most days, this afternoon we had a local visitor stop by the mobile command center to see what was going on in the big trailer with NASA and CSA logos on it. As we explained what was happening at the various workstations, he was particularly interested when we told him that we were trying to use a variety of metrics to better understand the many different factors that influence the effectiveness of scientific exploration. I explained that we are using several different techniques to try and measure aspects of scientific exploration that are very difficult to put numbers to – things like scientific merit, productivity, and data quality – and that if we can measure these things then we can begin to understand how to do scientific exploration more effectively, whether we are under water or on the moon.

He told me that he is working on a very similar challenge right now but applied to fighting fires rather than finding funky-looking rocks in lakes. There are a lot of ways to fight fires and new technologies can help. But which technologies are most effective and do their benefits justify their costs? Difficult questions and this firefighter is trying to develop metrics to begin answering them. He fully appreciated the importance of measuring what you hope to understand. He recognized that his task would be a difficult one, that in science or firefighting some people want perfect metrics or no metrics. But he was undeterred. Good man.

-Andrew

Community Day was a great success this year - with nearly 100 visitors from Pavilion Lake, the surrounding communities, and as far away as Kamloops

On Saturday evening, the PLRP opened its doors to the Pavilion Lake community! Roughly 100 people visited our community open house to learn about our project and how we study the lake they call home. We especially enjoyed the enthusiastic questions, the smiles and good wishes from everyone who attended the event.

Community members were invited into the Mobile Mission Command Center to check out our communications and lab equipment.

We are very grateful for the support of the community at Pavilion Lake and the Ts’kw’aylaxw First Nation. Thank you all, from PLRP.

-Ben

Thanks to our amazing communications team here at the lake, we have now installed two live webcams on site: one from the shore looking out to the lake, and one on the DeepWorker mobile launch platform.

These images are found under the “Interactive” tab on our website, and also available here:

http://www.pavilionlake.com/real-time-shore-cam.php
http://www.pavilionlake.com/real-time-barge-cam.php

This is just the start: lots more to come later in the week!

-Ben

[Bekah, talking to Marc at Desert RATS 2008] “Hey – let me ask you something…  Ok, so we have this lake up in Canada that is really long, really deep, is surrounded by steep walls and lots of trees, and has some really cool ‘microbialite’ structures in it!”

[Marc] ok? [thinking: Microbe-o-light? Sounds like a really small flashlight like thingy – maybe these things glow and give off light. ; ) does the lake bottom glow? Can it be seen from space? Can we communicate with it? I’m always looking for new technology to communicate – maybe these microbe-o-light’s are the next [OLEDs]!! Bummer: Turns out they’re not – they don’t emit photons at all. ]

[Bekah, continues (summarized)] “We’re studying the ‘morphology’ of the structures on the lake floor, and the way we study them is similar to how we’ll study things on Mars when we send people there…”

[Marc] How cool is that! [thinking: Good for you, sounds like cool science – but I’m not a microbialite scientist – how can our team help?]

[Bekah] We need communications. We want to link the underwater operations to people on the shore for the first time during the sub operations. We want them to interact, and understand the best ways to do things. [enthusiastically] Can we get video from the submarines back to the shore???

[Marc] maybe – can we drag a buoy behind the sub? [thinking: then you can have video!]

[Marc, thinking, reading into Bekah’s comments and from conversations in NASA Analog Mission meetings] Ok, it’s been stated and restated to me but I finally get it. Imagine we send humans back to the moon or to Mars, and every second that a person is on the planet costs lot of money – so we want to make it very valuable. We expect that on planetary missions. In this project, microbiolite science is the end product, and the team members are working on advance degrees, etc. HOWEVER, learning how to explore a planetary body while they are collecting their science products is also a key part of their research, AND a very cool approach. What surprises me most is the PLRP team could simply study these structures and go home – but instead they want to combine their exploration of this lake in a manner that will make planetary exploration much better when humans are involved. This makes their day much longer, requires much more coordination and planning, and makes end-to-end processes more strict. But they do it. Humans will advance. How cool is that? Wow.]

We got an enthusiastic go-ahead from NASA HQ to do this work together, and build on it. So here we are!

The Pavilion Lake Research Project (PLRP) team already had a significant amount of momentum before the comm team arrived. They have been studying this lake for years – but big things are ahead. My team is new here, and we’re working just to catch up. We’re learning how this team works, how they study their samples, how they interact with the sub flights, how they wash dishes, and how well they eat – thanks to Dana (she should be cooking for Olympic Athletes).

So, from a communications perspective, the Exploration-relevant topic we’re concerned about is: “how much communication between human explorers and Earth is necessary to “maximize” amount of things we learn about the planet?”

Ask yourself (or your students) this: When we send people back to the moon then to Mars, how often do you think Earth needs to talk to them to accomplish the mission? (Keep in mind that today we are in almost constant contact with our Crews orbiting Earth)

After all the missions we’ve had to the moon and to Earth’s orbit, this is the core question we’re asking ourselves, again. Every answer to this question has a different cost to the public and associated complexity (and risk) to the mission. For example, continuous communication to explorers is really nice to have, but has a significant cost and complexity to achieve – do we really need it? Is it required for safety? For science? How much bandwidth is needed for science data downlink to Earth? How fast does Earth need the science or navigation data to assist the explorers? We’re trying to answer these questions in analog missions.

For this PLRP mission, we’ve procured a big Internet data pipe along the lake, and we’re slinging it wirelessly across the lake using a high-power, “meshing” WiFi technology, to enable data to pass from the explorers out in the Nuytco subs back to the “control center” on shore. This is a big lake, and “illuminating” big chunks of the lake with “broadband” data is really challenging, so we’re moving our gear daily to maximize performance for the scientists, day by day.

We’re also working this year to allow teams in the command center to hear the comments live from the scientist-pilots. We believe this will help the science annotation process be more efficient. To improve upon this, next year we plan to allow the CAPCOM in the command center to talk to the sub pilots in real time, and if we get our wish, we hope to have live video from the subs in the command center as well!

-Marc

There is so much going on today on the first day of science operations, it’s almost too much to follow all of it! The DeepWorker submersibles arrived from Vancouver, and the expert team from Nuytco ensured they were guided safely into the water. The team was on hand to see the subs launched into Pavilion Lake, enabling another season of successful science and exploration. Photos from the launch are available here: http://www.pavilionlake.com/deepworker-launch-2009.php

The NASA Mobile Mission Control Center was on site when I arrived, and the whole team was working hard to set up the lab facilities, enable the communications systems and WiFi network that covers the lake, and get camp set up for our field season.

UBC-Gavia also went for a late Saturday night test-flight, complete with a new navigation system provided by Art Trembanis. This navigation system enables very high resolution mapping of the bottom of the lakebed that will contribute to our understanding of the microbialite distribution in the lake.

Today we also welcomed Shad Valley-UBC campus, (www.shad.ca) remotely in via videoconference. The Shads (students at Shad Valley) will be following our mission and interacting with our team via Skype, analogous to how mission control would interact with an outpost on the moon. They will have the opportunity to ask our scientists about our findings at the lake, and in the process, learn about analog science and exploration research.

Things are moving at light-speed around the Lake, and lots of science is upcoming for tomorrow. The first DeepWorker flights will be piloted by Mike Gernhardt and Margarita Marinova (who both just arrived this afternoon), kicking off our season of underwater exploration.

Stay tuned, we’re just getting started here at Pavilion Lake!

-Ben