18 minute read
By Alan Clemons
MSFC Director Singer: Delivering Our Mission is Biggest Challenge
Marshall Space Flight Director Jody Singer said the biggest challenge she has faced from Washington couldn’t be answered with one item.
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“I would have been I would say… delivering on our mission. Delivering on our mission is a critical challenge,” Singer said during her update at last month’s Space & Missile Defense Symposium at the Von Braun Center.
“We have to do that despite all the things that are going on. As a part of that, a second thing that is nothing really replaces taking care of our people and our team, and that type of working together keeps us integrated. And since I'm up here I get to say I've got a third thing to me is the budget. We have the people, we have a mission, we have positive attitudes, but we do need the budget that can help support the missions.
Singer touched on the partnerships Marshall has with the Kennedy, Stennis and Johnson space centers, Redstone Arsenal and others. Without them, she said, it would be much tougher to achieve critical aspects of projects from the big items seen by the public to smaller unseen ones.
Foremost is the Artemis project powered by the massive Space Launch System to return to the moon by 2025 and explore beyond. Boeing, Aerojet Rocketdyne and United Launch Alliance are working with Marshall and its other partners on the project. “Our area reaps the benefits of all of this work," Singer said. “When I think Marshall Space Flight Center, I'm very proud to say that it's not only about space that we're working on, and it also benefits our home community as well as the nation. For instance, over 43,000 jobs with an $8.3 billion economic impact is really good. "And that's pretty darn good for such a small organization that has half a percentage of the nation's budget.” Singer said on an average day with more than 7,000 professionals, civil servants and contractors working (on site) or working remotely, “as our administrator says, for a little bitty organization we’re sure doing a lot of work…And you can’t stress the importance of our Redstone partners.” In regard to the Space Launch System, Singer again noted the partnerships and impact the massive project is creating nationwide. The SLS vehicle and Artemis program will first send uncrewed spacecraft
By Alan Clemons / Photo by Steve Babin
and, eventually, astronaut-crewed craft to and from destinations farther than the moon, Mars and new parts of the solar system. Crewed moon landings and deep space exploration will happen for the first time since 1972, she said.
“We are a nationwide team, you know, and this is truly a national vehicle,” Singer said. “You can see…45 states, and we have an economic benefit over $500 billion. So, it's truly a national vehicle that helps over 1,100 suppliers and over 45 states. "Again, it’s the engagement with industry is the strengthening of technology, the manufacturing techniques, the things that we're doing for and in space.”
Singer said as the Marshall team and partners continue “setting the stage for a new era of space exploration and partnerships,” enthusiasm has to be tempered at times. Successful demonstrations and tests definitely are worth celebrating but long-term success and consistency are most critical.
“We're also looking to see how we can continue to be able to go further with sustained mission activity,” she said. “That is going to be critical, to have that sustained technology. The technology that you do for a demonstration is probably not the same technology identical to what you have for sustaining missions. So that's why we're continuing to work and grow and keep going.
“As we go forward, we know that we'll learn a lot, we know that it will be important that we have sustained access to space, having a sustainable system, a sustained rocket, and having a capability to fly down on those, and then be able to deliver… the systems to work and play and live and discover in space.” u
Let There Be Music Concert Series Raises Funds for New Madison’s Home Place Park Amphitheater
MADISON -- With the release of new U.S. Census data, the city of Madison experienced a whopping 33 percent population increase to 56,933 people in the last 10 years, making it a sprawling gateway into Alabama’s new largest city.
But that is no surprise to Madison city leaders who have for the past decade been paving the way to stardom with city projects that make Madison attractive while sharing the excitement of living just outside Huntsville.
From the energetic Town Madison multi-use development with its baseball element, hotels, restaurants, and entertainment venues; to a rejuvenated downtown with new shops, a luxury mid-rise apartment community at The Avenue Madison, and upgraded parks and recreational venues like the new amphitheater at Home Place Park.
Over the last two years, Madison Visionary Partners have reimagined their efforts to connect people, local government, and resources via community partnerships to inspire giving and that bring people together to improve the overall quality of life in Madison.
Last year during the height of the COVID pandemic, MVP came together with the American Legion to create the Madison River of Hope, a painted rock garden on Bill’s Hill at Dublin Park. Each rock was a tribute to a person or organization on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are two projects on their agenda, an upcoming coalition between MVP and local schools to expand and revitalize Kids Kingdom, also at Dublin Park; and a partnership with the Madison Arts Council and the city to raise money for downtown Madison’s $900,000 Home Place Park project featuring an amphitheater.
MVP and the Arts Council created Let There Be Music, an outdoor concert series to help raise community funds to build the amphitheater that can accommodate up to 500 people. It also includes a landscaped open lawn area and parking in the adjacent Madison City Stadium parking lot.
“The concerts are in conjunction with the Arts Council who put together an integration of local and regional artists, all with a local mission of making Home Place Park an important part of the downtown core,” said Liz Brinton, executive director of MVP.
“The city took on this project because the former location of the Concerts in the Park series, the Village Green on Front Street, was no longer large enough to accommodate the crowd and did not have adequate nearby parking,” Mary Beth Broeren, director of Development Services for the city of Madison, said. “We have not increased the stage size as the intent is for it to still be an intimate, neighborhood-friendly event space, but we wanted to increase the seating capacity and parking availability, which we have accomplished.”
Broeren said Home Place Park will be managed by the city’s Parks Department and there will be an area wired for food truck parking. A small picnic pavilion will be added as a future improvement. The Madison Rotary is also dedicating a Performance Pavilion.
They expect the park will be utilized for myriad events including
By Kimberly Ballard / Photos by Steve Babin
small plays, school events and the annual Street Festival.
“The open lawn area will be great for pets, throwing a Frisbee, et cetera. And people can reserve the space for all types of events,” said Broeren.
Brinton believes the sky is the limit for the park and their ability to bring people together to support all types of events.
“We envision the park becoming a place for tailgating football games, Shakespeare in the Park, and a lot of kid’s events like puppet shows and there is even talk about holding bird shows.”
The city has raised close to $200,000 including donations from State Sens. Tom Butler, Bill Holtzclaw and Arthur Orr and State Rep. Mike Ball and Mac McCutcheon.
That is where MVP has stepped up with the Let There Be Music concerts on the back patio of Old Black Bear Brewing Company downtown, just a stone’s throw from Home Place Park. The Thursday night concerts run through Sept. 30 will continue at Old Black Bear until the amphitheater is completed, weather permitting.
An official grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony will take place in September.
The remaining Let There Be Music schedule features musical artists:
Aug. 12, Jeff Tucker
Aug. 19, Winslow Davis
Aug. 26, Rob & the Red Beards
Sept. 9, The PMB
Sept. 16, Calypso Vision
Sept. 23, Boarder Town
Sept. 30, The Zooks
According to Broeren, an associated improvement underway is the widening of Short Street and the installation of a sidewalk connecting the park with The Avenue and the heart of historic downtown Madison.
“The city is working to enhance connectivity and walkability within the downtown area as part of its economic development efforts,” said Broeren. u
By Kimberly Ballard / Photos courtesy Southeastern Skin Cancer & Dermatology
MADISON -- According to studies backed by the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, there are approximately 3.3 dermatologists for every 100,000 people in the United States. That persistent undersupply of dermatological services has been trending since 1999 and can mean only one thing – there are not enough dermatologists to treat patients with potential skin problems.
Dr. Albert “Bo” Rivera opened Southeastern Skin Cancer & Dermatology in Madison in 2012. He has expanded the practice and his Mohs surgical center twice due to the need for more space as his patient load steadily increased.
“Our current patients expressed a preference for keeping the practice here in this area, so I purchased a parcel of land off Madison Boulevard five years ago,” said Rivera “It was a much larger parcel of land than I needed so the new Bojangles took one parcel, Firestone took another parcel, and we are building on the rest of it.”
The 22,000 square-foot building will be more than double his current space.
“The demand is there, and the Madison community has been great to support us,” said Rivera. “As more people move into the area, I anticipate we will continue to see growth. As far as I know, everyone who moves here will have skin.”
The hold-up has been his search for an additional dermatologist to join the practice. After a five-year search, that position was filled earlier this year by Dr. Katelyn Zimmer.
“With the addition of Dr. Zimmer, I think it is finally time to get the ball rolling on the new building,” said Rivera, a Haleyville native.
“We perform removal surgeries, do the pathology onsite while you wait, and do the repair or reconstructive procedure all in one stop,” he said. “The Mohs techniques do not use sedation and we spare the good tissue, doing less collateral damage than incision surgery, leaving the smallest defect possible and a 99 percent cure rate."
He said the most common areas for these surgeries are the face, neck, groin, and hands.
“I’m not personally trying to grow the practice,” said Rivera. “But if there is a need out there, and we are not meeting demand, I can and want to help with that.”
The new office is expected to be finished by June and ready to move in by July 2022. u
Northrop Grumman Legacy Programs Give Sway to Integrated Battlefield Kill Chain
By Kimberly Ballard / Photos courtesy Northrop Grumman
Something significant happened at the White Sands Missile Range on July 15 that will go down as proof of existence for the first successful, fully integrated kill chain and the realization of a kill web. The significance was the web used different sensors to engage a missile it was never designed to work against.
As the United States is facing an adversary and a threat in space that continues to evolve and become more complex, flat and declining defense budgets are of great concern.
Jo Cangianelli, director of Northrop Grumman's Launch and Missile Defense Systems, said the company had to learn how to provide more mission capability for less dollars, working smarter to maximize the mission impact.
With a heritage in space missions and launch vehicles, along with its legacy in missile defense, Northrop Grumman found a way to utilize data from its space layer and integrate it with a weapon.
“We have to counter the evolving threat from supersonic and hypersonic cruise missiles that have an advantage in terms of range, accuracy, speed, and maneuverability,” said Cangianelli. “What we have to accomplish is becoming more complex, and therefore the solutions have to become more complex.
“There are two enabling technologies that tie these together. One is data fusion - get data coming from satellites, down to the ground, and to weapons as quickly as possible. One method for doing that is data onboard processing. There is a significant amount of research and development that goes into enabling that capability on the satellite.
“You also have to look at enabling capabilities in technology on the weapons side, like a weapons data link. So now, how do you tie and transfer and communicate that data from the satellite system down to the weapon?
“Those are the two technologies we continue to invest in, to tie the kill chain together.”
The July 15 test used elements from those technologies.
Using a fused IBCS (Integrated Battle Command System) developed here in Huntsville, they tracked and engaged a PAC-3 Patriot missile using Marine Corp Ground/Air TaskOriented Radar (G/ATOR) and an Air Force F35 Lightning II joint strike fighter.
“This test was significant because it demonstrated in a live fire demonstration, the realization of something we have been trying to achieve in JAGC2 (Joint Air-Ground Control Cell), since those words were first uttered,” said Jerome Dunn, director of Systems Engineering at Northrop Grumman. “That is this kill web in which everything worked across all systems, all domains, and all services.
“It was proof of existence for our JIFC (Joint Integrated Fire Command and Control Communications) architecture we are building, which is based off ICBS architecture, into a larger-scale system that can deal with things that happen in future peer level competition.”
He said the test showed the flexibility of Northrop Grumman’s contributions to command-andcontrol architecture.
“It shows our work connecting all systems, including weapons, sensors, and all other battle management systems into a network of networks, and does it on the order of days to weeks, instead of months to years or never," he said.
“The other thing it showed us is that advanced mission management, when done correctly, can do this and offer full battle space coordination on the same time scale, and at scale, for a peer level fight.”
The test also incorporated the Joint Track Management Capability, a Missile Defense Agency program that allowed Northrop Grumman to send its track to potentially engage a standard missile with the same capability.
“Now we are talking true Joint All-Domain Command and Control,” said Dunn.
And the work continues.
Mike Ciffone, director of Programs at Northrop Grumman Space Systems, said the evolution of ballistic missiles and the emergence of more maneuverable threats such as supersonic glide vehicles are challenging the capabilities of our ground-based radar networks and there is no way to counter these threats.
The Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) program is part of a constellation of satellites using a multiple layer approach in multiple order regimes.
“HBTSS is important because these satellites use infrared telescopes to detect the heat signature from the missile launch and maneuvering phase of the vehicle interacting with the atmosphere,” Ciffone said. “These maneuverable threats are not like traditional threats and not how we do missile defense.
“A traditional ballistic trajectory is more parabolic and follows a more predictable arc. When it burns out at the top of its trajectory, you could forecast forward and estimate the impact point and provide attribution of the source to that.
“But the position of these new maneuvering threats is not deterministic, so we need to add a new layer to the constellation that picks up on the cue it gets from the missile warning constellation that has existed for decades.”
Once it picks up the cue from the warning layer, it can maintain track custody throughout its glide phase, providing fire control quality data with the position of velocity necessary to hand off to interceptors.
“Northrop Grumman has a wide range of capability that starts with infrared programs like the James Webb telescope," Ciffone said. "Having this breadth is a bench-step to people, tools, processes, and infrastructure that allows us to reach back as we are trying to solve hard problems on very rapid schedules.” u
Young Named First Bank Relationship Manager
Tracey Young has been promoted to relationship manager at First Bank’s Huntsville financial center. He was the bank’s portfolio manager vice president for the last seven years.
In his new role, Young will be responsible for retaining and developing strong relationships with new and existing clients to continue to grow FirstBank’s presence in the Huntsville market.
“As a portfolio manager, Tracey built extensive relationships in the community, and his continued dedication to serving customers and helping them meet their financial goals make him a great fit for this position,” said George Cannon, FirstBank Huntsville Market president. “We look forward to his continued contributions not only to our branch, but also to the Huntsville community.” He is a graduate of the Huntsville Leadership Connect Class of 2016 and has been involved in the community in various volunteer roles, including as a board member and treasurer for the North Alabama chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Young lives with his wife, Ashley, and their four children in Madison. u
Swanstrom Joins Port of Huntsville as PR Manager
The Port of Huntsville has announced Mary Swanstrom as its Public Relations Manager.
As Public Relations Manager, Swanstrom is the primary contact for the media and manages customer relations, advertising, special events, social media and community relations.
“Mary brings a comprehensive understanding of public relations to our team as a talented communicator and customer service professional,” said Barbie Peek, Business Development Director for the Port of Huntsville. “Her experience and unique skills set will be instrumental in helping us deliver quality service to our customers and expand our mission to serve the Tennessee Valley Region.”
Hailing from Atlanta, Swanstrom has lived in North Alabama for more than 20 years. Previously, she worked as director of Communications, Membership and Marketing for Heart of the Valley YMCA. Previously, Swanstrom worked at The Huntsville Times and in news production at WAAY-TV Channel 31. u
Duriez New Davidson Homes COO; Deane Named CFO
Huntsvillebased Davidson Homes has bolstered its leadership team with the promotion of Greg Duriez to chief operating officer and the appointment of Jeff Deane as chief financial officer.
“Both executives strengthen our company as we continue our focused, organic expansion strategy of building in fast-growing, thriving communities in the South that offer homebuyers an appealing quality of life,” said Adam Davidson, founder, president and CEO of Davidson Homes. “These appointments are also a direct reflection of the success and appeal of our company’s strategy, momentum and ability to retain, reward and attract incredibly talented leaders.
“Greg is a proven, homebuilding veteran who is a trusted member of our executive team and has been instrumental in our growth. Jeff’s extensive experience in finance, accounting and operations in our industry will be invaluable as we expand into new markets.”
Duriez, who previously served as regional president, has more than 30 years of experience in the new home industry.
Deane brings 26 years of accounting, finance and operations experience to his role at Davidson Homes. u
Brightway Rook Family Agency Opens First Huntsville Office
Kristen Rook has opened Brightway, The Rook Family Agency, opens Brightway, The Rook Family Agency today. The office, Brightway Insurance Agency’s first location in Huntsville, is located at 4100 Market Street, Suite 100, just outside the Redstone Arsenal Gate 9 Visitors Center.
“I am excited to be opening a business to help friends and others in the community to protect what is most important to them,” said Rook. “The biggest part of this is being able to write for many options of insurance companies to be able to find the most competitive choice.”
“Kristen knows Huntsville and her community, and we are ecstatic to partner with her to open our first agency in this market,” said Brightway President and CEO Michael Miller. “Brightway provides Agency Owners, like Kristen, with all-encompassing business support that frees up their time to focus on helping their customers and growing their business.” u
