ACADEMIA

The public is invited to an open house on March 31 from 1:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. to celebrate the completion of the "designed, developed and built" T-38N Multi-Task Trainer for NASA. The open house, which will be held at the International Simulation and Training Systems (ISTS) facility located at the Williams Gateway Airport, will give the public to view the simulator as well as speak with NASA dignitaries and several astronauts. The project at Williams Gateway involved a unique "team approach" with government agencies and industry working closely together to create the simulator as a result of NASA losing U.S. Air Force-provided T38-A simulation capability in 2002. The ISTS Team was headed by NASA as the customer/user, ISTS as the prime contractor and technology transfer agent, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) as the advanced technology provider, and the Laboratory contract support team of Lockheed Martin, Link Simulation & Training and Boeing providing hardware/software expertise as subcontractors. Aerospace Engineer and Contract Manager for the project, Jack "Triple" Nickel commented, "The largest benefit of the new simulator is that proficiency of all pilots will increase immensely for emergency training, but it also has a second cockpit to help train our Mission Specialists." Following the open house, the simulator will be delivered to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas to begin training NASA Space Shuttle Astronauts and Mission Specialists on emergency procedures. For more information, please contact Marv Wellik, Senior Vice President of Marketing, or Heather Gray, Marketing Specialist for the Williams Gateway AREA Office at 480-644-5047.