We get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of space exploration in the latest issue of Cadalyst:
On January 16, 2004, on a clear bright day in space, engineers at ASI (Alliance Spacesystems) in Pasadena, California, held their collective breaths as a project they had poured their best efforts into faced its ultimate test. Given that this proof-is-in-the-pudding event lasted only a handful of seconds and took place 100 million miles away from their Southern California offices, there wasn't much they could do if their pet project proved faulty. But much to their joy and satisfaction, the robotic arm of the Spirit Rover deployed successfully, moving a microscope down for an up-close and personal encounter with the surface of Mars to examine the planet's dust in the closest proximity ever achieved.This historical event — several years in the making, considering that the project began in November 2000 — owed much of its success to the quality and capability of these engineers' design software-SolidWorks and the appropriately named COSMOSWorks analysis software.
Talk about the Nuclear Family: work on these blueprints for multimillion-dollar appendages were completed not in an Apollo-mission style, fenced-off, high-profile laboratory, but between several cooperating firms contracted by Jet Propulsion Laboratories - linked by e-mail and the internet. A notable portion of work was done from engineers' homes, and the paperless approach reportedly cut labor time in half.