Nick Larter, MBA (Technology), B.Sc. (Hons) - Technology Troubleshooter
- consultancy and management services in new technologies -
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Since 1985, Nick Larter has pursued a broad-based career in systems engineering and project management in a variety of technological areas. This work can be summarised as follows:-
Mr. Larter participated in the reviews of the 1985 and 1986 ESPRIT (European Strategic Programme for Research in Information Technology) evaluations for DG XIII of the European Commission and, in 1986, made a review of international information technology stimulation initiatives for the British Alvey programme. In 1997 - 98 he managed the implementation of security auditor recommendations for the security critical network of an international organisation concerned with monitoring the observance of the Chemical Weapons Convention. From June 1998 until January 1999 he was interim manager for the same organisation's Administrative Information Management (AIM) project. In 1998 he also developed a Y2K (the so-called Year 2000 Problem or Millennium Bug) compliance auditing service for small and medium-sized enterprises. In January 1999 he commenced work as operational project manager for a Stamp Duty Administration System for the Office of the Revenue Commissioners (Ireland), focussing on integration and acceptance testing for an integrated IT-based solution, including a custom-built marking/stamping machine. In March 2000 he began an ongoing IT strategy review for Kerry County Council - areas examined so far include the development of an Intranet, the Complete Information System for Water Services, Housing Section and Environment Services Section activities and the development of a Council-wide IT strategy. In August 2000 he began an assignment to assist the United Nations with a worldwide inventory of their IT.
From 1987 to 1989 Mr. Larter was involved in business planning, development planning and marketing activities for the LittLEO commercial small-satellite launch vehicle consortium and in the parallel definition studies for the Andoya Satellite Launch Base, commissioned by the Norwegian Space Centre. In 1993 - 94 he carried out the analysis of launch and landing site options for ESA's Reusable Rocket Launcher Demonstrator (RRLD) and in 1995 - 97, did both this and the subsequent analysis of ground infrastructure requirements for ESA's Future European Space Transportation Investigations Programme (FESTIP).
After working on ESA's Study Towards European Autonomy in Manned Space (STEAMS) in 1987, Mr. Larter returned to manned space as interface engineer with responsibility for fourteen biological science experiments on the privately funded Juno Anglo-Soviet space mission to the Mir station (1989 - 91). In 1992 he became a consultant member of the payload engineering team (based at Alenia Spazio, Turin) for the Columbus Attached Laboratory for the International Space Station and from there moved to ESA's European Space Technology & Experiment Centre (Estec) in 1993, to write the Laboratory Support Equipment Section for the Columbus Payload Accommodation Handbook (CPAH). He returned to this work in 1996 - 97, writing the User Guide for European Users of the International Space Station (Early Opportunities Issue), the Handbook for the European Users of EXPRESS Pallet and the corresponding Instrument Proposal Datasheets.
In the intervening two and a half years, he supported Estec on the Euromir '94 and Euromir '95 missions, working on the development of the Crew Support Devices and Crew Support Computer, eventually as a member of the Euromir mission management team. In 1994 - 95 he was also involved in the knowledge acquisition tasks for ESA's Keep-ID project - a knowledge-based payload accommodation handbook for Columbus and Mir.
In August 2000 he was engaged to edit the chapter on spacecraft for McGraw Hill's forthcoming Standard Handbook for Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineers.
Mr. Larter's involvement in microgravity science payload design began in 1985, with ESA's Pre-phase-A study for a Gravitational Biology Facility for Columbus and continued with the Anthrolab Phase A study and the Biolab Phase A2 study. He also participated in ESA's LIFT 1 and LIFT 2 life sciences technology studies (he was project manager for the observation and analysis tasks of the Biosample automated laboratory, as part of LIFT 2). From 1993 to 1996 he supported Estec in the management of the ASTRE accelerometer procurement and subsequent flight preparations as part of the Microgravity Measurement Assembly (MMA) reflight on the MSL-1 mission and in the corresponding upgrading of the MMA ground station.
In 1995 - 96 Mr. Larter carried out the Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) for the Mass Storage Device (MSD) of the European-provided Russian Data Management System (DMS-R) for the International Space Station. In 1997-99 he carried out the FMECA for the Sideloader/Magazine Controller (SM/C) of the McDonnell Douglas Apache Longbow helicopter.
In 1992, Mr. Larter worked on ESA's study on the microgravity requirements for a Rapid Sample Return System. In the same year he carried out the microgravity satellite part of ESA's market survey for small and medium sized satellites in the period 1995 - 2005. In 1997 he participated in a study, for ESA/Estec, into the cost competitiveness of spacecraft control and data systems, interviewing industry representatives on aspects of this topic.
In 1987, Mr. Larter was a member of the consultancy team which which put together a major foundation course on all aspects of space for Oslo University (Norway). From 1989 to 1991 he was one of three Associate Directors of the Brunel University (Uxbridge, England) Space School which delivered several residential space interest courses a year to older schoolchildren. As well as giving regular lectures, he had a major role in setting up the School's well-known Mining the Moon teaching project. Also in this period, he served in his spare time as a Project Officer for the Space Education Trust (SET) - a charitable body set up to promote education in space matters in Great Britain, based at the Royal Aeronautical Society - and he delivered a number of lectures to schools and university groups. From 1991 to 1993 he lectured annually on space matters for the Edinburgh International Science Festival (Scotland). In the 1991 - 92 academic year he was a visiting lecturer on the Aerospace Engineering degree course at Kingston University (Surrey, England).
In 1988, Mr. Larter supported the Space Strategy and Coordination Unit of DG XII of the European Commission during the drafting of the Community Action on Microgravity Research. In 1997, he began to work on an initiative for a European Space Charter, as a participant in the Brussels-based policy group Systemics Network International (SNI).
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Mr. Larter was employed as a consultant with General Technology Systems (GTS) Ltd., Uxbridge, England from 1985 - 89, as a research fellow at Brunel University, based at the Brunel Institute for Bioengineering (BIB), Uxbridge, England, from 1989 to 1991 and as a senior payload operations engineer with Space Applications Services (SAS) S.A./N.V., Brussels, Belgium, from 1991 to 1996. In mid-1996 he became a self-employed consultant, trading as Technology Troubleshooter, working from a base in the Shannon region of the Irish Republic.
In 1994 Mr. Larter embarked on the distance learning MBA (Technology) programme with the UK's Open University. This degree was awarded at the end of 1996, following the submission of a thesis on the changing position of the European Space Agency within the European Union. Previously, in 1988, he attended the inaugural summer session of the International Space University (ISU) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA. His initial university education was completed at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England in 1982, with a first class honours degree in agricultural zoology. This was followed by three years' research on aspects of integrated pest management in the rice crop, at Imperial College, London, England.
Mr. Larter gained two ESA Team Achievement Awards in recognition of his work for ESA's Euromir '94 and '95 missions. At the 1988 ISU summer session he gained a Space Foundation Space Business Round Table Annual Award for his work in lunar base development design.
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Last update: 13/August/00