Nasa trials BlackBerrys for engineering reports

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) is soon to begin a pilot project using BlackBerry mobile devices to give engineers working on the space shuttle access to reports on the move.

The space agency is already using business intelligence (BI) tools to monitor the preparation of the shuttle, said Ronald Phelps, project manager in Nasa's Shuttle Business Office.

"We made a decision several years ago to hand over more and more of the day-to-day processing to contractors and move Nasa out of that," Phelps told silicon.com.

As a result Nasa had to develop the capability to look at its contactors' processes and make sure the work is being done properly, by using a web-based reporting system built on technology from BI company Information Builders.

"The system allows us to gather the data produced by the contractor or Nasa engineers to make us comfortable that the vehicle is ready to fly," Phelps said, speaking at the Information Builders Summit 2005 user conference.

Nasa has also integrated with the reporting system its electronic logging system, which is used by engineers to report the work they've done, and will soon add a surveillance system which helps to check that all the work done on the shuttle has been completed correctly.

"The whole system is to give us confidence that the vehicle is ready to launch," Phelps said.

The next step is to take some of those reports to engineers on the move, he said, with a trial due to start next month.

"If there's something that they need to see they can get access to it by the BlackBerry. Right now, to get information, they have to go back to their PCs," he said.

Phelps said the BlackBerry project - using Nasa's own internal wireless network - will start with around 20 to 30 engineers but will have the capacity to grow.

The engineers will use the BlackBerrys to send an email to the server which will run the report and email back the information. Phelps said the system could be developed further so that engineers can send back information to the database via the BlackBerry as well.

The next shuttle launch is due in July - the first launch since the loss of the space shuttle Columbia in January 2003.