Aerospace Applications North America, Inc. was incorporated in Texas in October 2004 after the completion of a successful series of human machine interface design projects for the European Space Agency in collaboration with NASA. These projects took place at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and spread over a 5-year timeframe, starting with an involvement in the X38 project. When NASA announced the development of the Orion spacecraft, Space Applications Services, our Belgian parent company, decided to establish a US subsidiary to provide services directly to NASA. Thanks to our past experience, our company was quickly able to get involved with the design of the Orion spacecraft cockpit, which has been our main focus of activity ever since.

Over the years we have been intimately involved in defining, prototyping and evaluating early user interface concepts, designing and testing display formats for the various systems, building fully functional cockpit mockups to provide realistic simulation of the spacecraft operation during the display format evaluation campaigns, and implementing automated processes to document and pre-verify the resulting display software.

Human-centered engineering solutions

The main focus of our company is to provide human-centered solutions and engineering services for on-board and on-ground command and control of aircraft and space vehicles. Our expertise covers:

• Mission design and operations scenario definition;
• Design and implementation of ground segment solutions for command and control;
• Design and implementation of automation and robotics command and control solutions;
• Design and development of simulation systems and training tools;
• Advanced man-machine interface concepts and solutions development.

Our experience includes:

• Space Shuttle, ISS, X38, Orion systems and operations;
• Mission definition and astronaut task analysis;
• Human factor theory and psychology applied to cockpit design;
• Human-machine interface rapid prototyping;
• Space vehicle cockpit mockup manufacturing;
• Prototype cockpit evaluation campaign;
• Definition of human machine interface development processes;
• Implementation of distributed tools to support the human machine interface development process;
• Re-usable libraries of display graphical components;
• Deployment of prototype code for flight test support;
• Emerging technologies such as virtual reality, stereo vision and augmented reality;
• Automated software documentation and pre-verification;
• Software development in C/C++, OpenGL, Python, HTML and Javascript.

Custom software solutions

Although Aerospace Applications North America’s core expertise is with the aerospace industry, we also provide that experience to other industries.

Whether you are a space or aircraft manufacturer, financial institution, hotel, restaurant or travel agency; we can provide you with the specific software solution you need. Whether you are a government institution, a small business or large corporation; we are dedicated to satisfy your software needs and budget.