Maria Rajput

As I begin my doctoral studies into technical debt, I'm plagued by questions about how we in business perceive technical debt. So, I've built a survey to measure the varying perceptions of technical debt. I promise the survey is very short and quick. Please distribute/repost this survey FAR and WIDE so that I may gather as much data as possible to begin my research into this challenging problem! https://cvent.me/MVAOqw Thank you all! #technicaldebt #technologydebt

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Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCAs, have been receiving a lot of attention lately. The Air Force Research Laboratory/Kratos XQ-58 is the first flying aircraft of this type, designed to be built quickly, in large numbers, and at low cost, but with relevant capabilities. Occupying a design space between an expendable munition and a high-end fighter, the reusable XQ-58 can fly at high subsonic speeds and range out to 3,000 NM. It is powered by a small turbofan engine with a dorsal inlet, has swept wings, and a V-tail. It is launched from a rail using rockets and lands using parachutes and airbags. It has a small weapons bay from which small UASs have been launched. The XQ-58 first flew in March 2019. Various versions since then are being used for autonomy/AI development and operational demonstrations; recently one with Marine markings conducted electronic attack demonstrations with F-35s. Another one was used to demonstrate conventional take-off using a wheeled trolley. The first XQ-58 is on display at the National Museum of the USAF in Dayton, OH. #cca #sweptwings #uavs #aeronautics #turbofans #jetengines #aviationhistory #aviationhistoryanddoodles https://lnkd.in/gss2NwkB

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How to help *anyone* Don't be deceived by the title of the article from Crucial Learning. I have repeatedly heard that making vague offers of "Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help" is actually the opposite of helpful, but this is the first place I've seen instructions for what to do instead: 1. Work with your friend to list everything that is stressing them right now. Not just the big stressors -- everything 2. Take everything off their plate that you can. Likely you will only be able to tackle small issues, but even this is helpful because it will reduce your friend's overall stress level https://lnkd.in/ekwqpPnc

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Do any of my fellow #LabVIEW programmers suffer from chronically holding shift in an attempt to make items move faster when using wildly different programs? Right now VISIO is my bane!😂 #NationalInstruments #programming #modernissues #softwareengineering #doofus

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Several folks have heard me express the believe that leaning more into data science should be foundational for systems engineers because of the need to examine things from many different angles. In current practice, we are more like intelligence agents. In that I mean, we identify, develop, and continuously come back to assets in specific corners of a project to build up our insight about what is happening and what problems are on the way. We also trade what we’ve gathered to these folks in order to keep the contacts going.

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Exciting progress on my Duckiebot project! 🐤🤖 I’ve completed the code for it to play Monopoly Junior Level One. While it’s just an at-home prototype done for fun, it showcases some impressive capabilities: 🔹 The Duckiebot can read chance cards and understand "Go to Timeout." 🔹 It uses masks to navigate and avoid straying from the board. 🔹 The dice model is fairly accurate, allowing for realistic gameplay. 🔹 It understands all board positions and can match chance positions with nearby neighbors. 🔹 When a duck is placed on the board, it signals the bot to activate the "read dice model", after which it maneuvers to its next position. 🔹 To confirm its location, it performs a series of self orientations. This project demonstrates how complex tasks can be achieved using just computer vision and model switching. Looking forward to pushing the limits of Duckiebot! #Duckietown #Duckiebot #AI #MachineLearning #NVIDIA #JetsonNano

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Advanced Power for Extreme Space Exploration! Consider submitting an abstract to this special session we are putting together at the AIAA SciTech 2025 Conference. Go to aiaa.org/SciTech to submit your abstract, and select “Other Topics in Aerospace Power Systems."

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Moving large amounts of regolith is a requirement for any long-term mission to the moon or Mars. But so far, humanity has only sent systems capable of moving small amounts of soil at a time—primarily for sample collection. Sending a large, dedicated excavator to perform such work might be cost-prohibitive due to its weight, so why not send a bulldozer attachment to a mobility unit already planned for use on the surface?

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Marine Corps Air Station Yuma recently highlighted a regenerative grazing pilot project in both a video and article. Working with the Department of Defense Legacy Resource Management Program, EA was tasked to manage the project and the grazer, conduct long-term vegetation monitoring surveys, and complete a comparative study to assess vegetation composition in response to grazing impacts. The primary goal is to improve soil conditions to promote the growth of native plant species, turning the desert into a carbon sink. The livestock's movement and grazing help knead the soil, allowing water to flow into the ground and creating a healthy environment for microbes. To learn more, read the article or watch the video: Video: https://lnkd.in/gXUQ97HH Article: https://lnkd.in/gjC_4dKB Photo Attribution: U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Jade K. Venegas  Photo Disclaimer: The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.

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In this episode of “The Elara Edge: Expert Insights on Space Security,” retired General "DT" Thompson, senior principal advisor at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy, shares his perspective on the Comprehensive Strategy and what it says about the Space Force's emerging role in the Joint Fight. Today’s episode is the first of three installments of a Special Edition Series marking the first anniversary of Elara Nova as an emerging leader in national security space! Listen in at the link below! #elaranova #elaraedge #nationalsecurityspace #nationalsecurity #spacesecurity #SpaceForce #Pentagon #DOD #JointFight #JADC2

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Rocketry-based propulsion systems won't work for achieving this. Sad, but it is the truth. CTPSci/CTP Propulsion are prerequisites for multiplanetary civilization. #newfutureisnow #future #travel #futuretravel #newcivilization #CTPSci

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With SpaceX's rocket failure the other day, I find myself in conversations with people outside of engineering who are trying to understand "what's next" when it comes to figuring out what happened what to do about it. It seems that many people who have never participated in any kind of anomaly investigation or failure investigation don't understand the difference between a couple of what I would consider common terms: - Failure Analysis - Root Cause Analysis Failure Analysis is what we do to figure out how and why something happened. Taking an extreme case of, say, a rocket exploding unintentionally shortly after lift off, failure analysis can lead us to how and why the rocket exploded. This could involve visually inspecting the debris, reviewing any telemetry data that was collected, etc. The specific steps the team takes will be related to the specifics of the situation. But let's say they determine the rocket exploded because a fuel tank ruptured. Now, we turn to Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to help us figure out why that tank ruptured, with the goal of preventing similar failures in the future. There are also multiple methods for RCA (sometimes we refer to it as RCCA -- Root Cause *and* Correction Actions) such as the "5 Whys Technique" or creating a "Fishbone diagram." FWIW, in my experience with spacecraft anomalies, the Fishbone diagram is more common. Ideally, you get to *the* root cause, but often with spacecraft -- especially if we've lost communication with it -- we might be left with a few possibilities. In that case, we might even implement multiple corrective actions to prevent the same thing from happening. Of course I'm not privy to the details of the SpaceX investigation, but I'm certain that a team of engineers is working through some version of this as I write this! Hopefully this provides some general insight into the process, no matter what the issue or who the team is. This is akin to Engineering 201.🙂 

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Code — or at least the variety of “software” where a human specifies the exact order of computations — in 2024 is like the Dutch tulips of 1636. Natural language doesn’t specify a procedure; words (or art for that matter) trigger a set of feelings that, when strung together in a logical sequence of a given characteristic (I like to think each of these thought paths as a wire; and the bundle of wires (“rope”) is similar to consistent patterns of thought) it triggers “action” (e.g. computation, acceleration, heating, etc.). In short: I think humanity will (or should) consider a more efficient human/machine interface; one where the operator isn’t bound by the limits of the machine (e.g. what code it can compile or whatnot), but only by the limits of their creativity.

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A follow-up to a previous post - this one for the orbital mechanics / planetary science folks in the back. I'm offering a $100 USD prize personally (via Venmo, unaffiliated with my employer) to the first person who proves or disproves causality as to why the "knees" in each Time of Flight curve per Outer Planet are all about 2 km/s and at the point of "half-a-Hohmann" transfer. Here's the observation: Neptune Hohmann: ~21 y Neptune at the knee: 10y - 11y, at ~2 km/s capture. About 50% transfer time. Uranus Hohmann: ~14y Uranus at the knee: ~7 km/s at ~2 km/s capture. Again, 50%. Saturn Hohmann: ~6.5y Saturn at the knee: just over 3y at 2 km/s capture. Very close to 50%. Jupiter: ~2.7y Hohmann Jupiter at the knee: ~1.3y at 2 km/s capture. Very close to 50%. Note that all of these capture orbits are for roughly 0.2 planet radii above the clouds, and the transfer delta-v's have some variance because of slight eccentricities per orbit. So there's some slop here, but it's always about half the Hohmann transfer duration at the point of ~2 km/s capture, conveniently close to Cassini's onboard propulsion capability (for context). If any of the planets had different masses or different semi-major axes, this trend wouldn't exist. Is this just a strange artifact of solar system formation? Why are they all about 2 km/s to capture at the transfer time of ~1/2 a Hohmann transfer orbit? Is it somehow related to orbital resonance and therefore causal? Can we blame Jupiter somehow? I postulate that this is coincidence. I challenge someone to prove it one way or another. Submissions accepted in Comments, DMs, or ResearchGate etc. Prize money subject to inflation/deflation with a maximum contest duration of 10 years, closing 7/31/2034.

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