Have anyone of us thought about how the hell these spaceships are made, that is how this six legged athlete rover takes the shape of an actual working thing, which is huge transition from an engineer’s fantasy to an actual working thing… it involves a lot of creativity, technical knowhow etc. but mostly it involves, It takes the stones to dream up what no one ever thought possible, and the will to bring it to life. The creative force behind all the big thinking hangs out of NASA’s jet propulsion lab where the actual building process
Galactic brainstorm:
The jet propulsion lab has team of people called as the “A-team” which contains people from various and diverse background. This team gathers in a place called “left field” which is very flexible place that is similar to a pre-school and contains a lot of toys. Paired with a Principal Investigator (a.k.a. the main scientist), the A-Team brainstorms ideas to address the priorities of the Decadal Survey. The Decadal Survey, which takes place whenever NASA wants to reassess its research priorities for the next 10 years, compiles a list of dream projects from some of the world's best science minds. The most recent one came out in March of last year, and called for, among other things, a new Mars Sky Crane and a Saturn Ring Observer.
The A team comes with some wild ideas which are proposed to the next level of people called as the Team-X who will decide which idea is possible practically, The decision taken by Team X is really quick and dirty where nearly 30 people are crammed in a single room each one of them takes care of their own specialized area they keep the cost constrains in their mind before announcing the final decision.
Approval Matrix:
When the funding opportunity arises jet propulsion lab has to compete with so many other bodies like other NASA facilities and private companies. If the JPL succeds the the initial desing process takes place.
If JPL wins a contract to build something, it's time for its Mechanical Design Center to get involved. These engineers figure out how to make the concept a reality—what metals will work, what shape a joint should be, etc. Team X comes up with a sort of refined sketch; the MDC makes the CAD drawing where every bolt and beam is precisely represented. It would go something like this:
Scientists: "Get these 10 science instruments to Mars and make sure they're still working when they get there. Also we want to test in more locations than just were we land"
Engineers: "OK, then it should probably have wheels…"
Once the design is done then they have to perform something called as desing review where the team has to submit the project to a group of “greybeards” ie most intelligent people who have being performing this job for a very long time.
Building the Dream
If it passes the Final design review, it's off to the machine shops to make the prototype parts. Then the engineers put the product together and test the crap out of it to make sure it performs as everyone intended. If the prototype works and looks good, then the place best suited to make the part will be selected—either JPL's on-site machine shop or a local one. Nothing is mass produced; everything is a one off (maybe a two off).
