DENVER -- Lockheed Martin Corp. will employ cutting edge virtual reality technology to streamline development of future space systems, starting with the U.S. Air Force's next-generation Global Positioning System satellites, the company announced Monday.

Credit: Lockheed Martin
 
The new virtual reality lab here will reduce snags in manufacturing as engineers finish the design of new spacecraft and start building them, according to Jeff Smith, director of special projects at Lockheed Martin's space systems division.

The Collaborative Human Immersive Laboratory is first being used to aid the design of ground support equipment and space hardware for the Air Force's GPS 3 satellites, which will begin launching in 2014.

"As customer budget pressures continue, and the need for critical space assets escalates, the CHIL will help increase the affordability and value of our programs," Smith said. "While similar technology is being used in the movie industry to create fictitious worlds, the CHIL is real, and it is driving affordability into our products."

The CHIL works by tracking the movements of workers wearing motion capture gear, then projecting avatars of people and hardware in virtual reality glasses. The lab is located inside the GPS 3 factory building at Lockheed Martin's facility southwest of Denver.

"The CHIL is a new capability to allow us to create the virtual world before the physical world," Smith said in an interview Monday. "The bottom line is virtual creation before the physical creation of our products and the associated processes. If we do it right, we want to be able to reduce rework."

Technicians can train for spacecraft assembly procedures with the CHIL long before real equipment is ever produced. Engineers can also check designs before moving programs to the factory floor.

Artist's concept of a GPS 3 satellite. Credit: Lockheed Martin
 
"We want to make sure we have a factory that is efficient, and that when we bring those parts in they go together, and then when a mechanic is in there trying to use his torque wrench to tighten a bolt, for example, he'll be able to do that without interference," Smith said.

Lockheed Martin says the CHIL will help stem the threat of rising costs and schedule delays by revealing potential bottlenecks and workflow issues before they happen.

"We think there are some real savings opportunities as we deploy it," Smith said.

The company uses a similar system called the Human Immersive Laboratory in its aircraft division.

Smith would not disclose the cost of the CHIL or how much money it could save on future programs, but he said it was finished in less than a year from the time Lockheed Martin started purchasing components of the lab. Designers tried to use as much commercial off-the-shelf technology as possible during the CHIL's development.

Engineers are already using the CHIL on the GPS 3 program. The next program to use the lab will be NASA's Orion crew capsule, but Smith expects the lab will branch out to many classified and unclassified programs.

"GPS 3 is just a pathfinder," Smith said.