Distributed Collaboration System for Mars Gravity

Dates

February 2003 — January 2004

Principal Investigators

Audrey Schaffer and Ryan Damico

Goal

To enable the Information Systems sub-group of the Mars Gravity project team to create an array of distributed network servers based on Microsoft .NET technology to allow real-time access to critical information needed by the team.

Overview

The Mars Gravity Biosatellite was a student-led project, spread across three universities on two continents. Students involved in this project worked to design, build, launch, and recover a low-Earth orbiting satellite in order to study the effects of Martian-level gravity on mammals. Students at MIT, the University of Washington, and the University of Queensland/Australia worked in a highly interdisciplinary environment on engineering, science, business development, and program management.

Essential to team success was effective communication and collaboration for a group spread around the world. Through iCampus support, a subgroup of the Mars Gravity project team created a distributed collaboration system that allowed for easy, real-time access to information, scheduling and task tracking, and face-to-face communications for team members at all three universities. The focus was on data distribution (allowing all team members to access data and reports over the internet quickly and easily); project management (assignment and tracking of action items, scheduling of meetings across time zones, and coordination of management efforts); as well as video conferencing (for conducting meetings more effectively by showing blackboard drawings and design prototypes in real-time).

Modifying already available software, the Mars Gravity Information Systems group hoped to build on it by creating a software package that ultimately could be used by any project team working across large distances, and applicable to many distributed learning environments.

Project Output

Publications

Press

"Space mission will explore effect of Mars' gravity on mammals" MIT News Office, January 9 2004. View

Links

Mars Gravity Biosatellite Program