HOUSTON, TX (December 2019) — Aerodyne Industries LLC presented its President’s Award for 2019 to BettyLynn Ulrich for her outstanding support to the JSC Engineering Technology and Science (JETS) contract at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX.
Leah Romero was also honored with the JETS Software Excellence Team Award for her role as Team Lead for the Capsule Parachute Assembly System (CPAS).
The President’s Award, which is given to an individual who has made significant contributions to the success of the company, was presented by Johnny Walker, Vice President of Program Development, and JETS Teammate Principal, Robin Osborn.
BettyLynn, an ECLSS System Engineer, recently completed a major project that had been in work for nearly four years. The project was to establish a shelf life extension for the CO2 scrubber canisters used on the International Space Station as a backup supply of oxygen.
The current stockpile of CO2 scrubber canisters was flown in 2013; the stockpile was set to expire in 2015 given the canisters shelf life of 2.44 years. BettyLynn performed the research and was able to validate a longer shelf life of seven years, which was approved by the ISS Program. She was then requested to test the canisters to extend the shelf life even longer.
Through her persistence and perseverance, BettyLynn was able to get the shelf life increased to 15 years with a conservative cost savings of about $363M, which included saving the ISS Program hardware development cost and upmass.
According to her customer, "It has been a slow moving task due to the testing, data analysis and board discussions that have been required, but BettyLynn has continued to stay on top of the details and drive this to completion.”