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Jeff Bauer on Data Memos

Ask OCE — January 12, 2006 — Vol. 1, Issue 2 When I came on board the Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor (ERAST) Project, first as Chief Engineer and later as Deputy Project Manager, there was a lot to keep track of — four flight projects and numerous technology development initiatives. One company, AV, had […]

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This Week in NASA History: Helios 2

Ask OCE — January 12, 2006 — Vol. 1, Issue 2 Helios 2, a joint venture between West Germany and the United States, was launched on a Titan-Centaur rocket on January 15, 1976. The second in a pair of nearly identical interplanetary probes sent to observe the sun and its solar wind, it carried the […]

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Message from the Chief Engineer — Risk Management: Enabling the New Age of Exploration

Ask OCE — January 12, 2006 — Vol. 1, Issue 2   Remarks delivered by Chris Scolese at the Risk Management Conference (RMC VI), Orlando, FL December 6, 2005

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James Barrowman on Defining Requirements

Ask OCE — February 8, 2006 — Vol. 1, Issue 3   “It’s the wrong thing to be doing,” I told the Director of Engineering, trying to head off a last-minute change in our X-ray Timing Explorer (XTE) project.

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Message from Chief Engineer — Defining Engineering Excellence

Ask OCE — February 8, 2006 — Vol. 1, Issue 3 By Chris Scolese When Administrator Griffin selected me to serve as Chief Engineer, my mandate was clear: to improve engineering by incorporating technical excellence and engineering authority into the day-to-day engineering processes for all of NASA’s activities. Since Columbia, we have learned and grown […]

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This Week in NASA History — Space Shuttle Challenger: 20 Years Later, Normalizing Deviance Remains a Problem

Ask OCE — February 8, 2006 — Vol. 1, Issue 3   January 28, 1986 is a day etched in the memories of everyone associated with NASA at the time. The impact of the Challenger disaster was not confined to NASA, of course; it was a national tragedy. The loss of the seven-person crew on […]

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Modeling the Way We Work

Ask OCE — February 8, 2006 — Vol. 1, Issue 3 by Maarten Sierhuis, Ames Research Center   NASA projects are inherently collaborative efforts. There are no solo ventures. Many require the work of hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals over the course of their life cycles. Anyone who tries to track all the moving […]

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Stardust Returns, New Horizons Takes Off

Ask OCE — February 8, 2006 — Vol. 1, Issue 3   Four days after a capsule from the Stardust explorer successfully returned to Earth from a seven-year journey of almost three billion miles, the fastest spacecraft in history began a three billion mile trip of its own to Pluto. The Stardust capsule landed as […]

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NASA on the Hill: Comment on the President’s Budget for Science

Ask OCE — February 8, 2006 — Vol. 1, Issue 4   Representative Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), Chairman of the House Committee on Science, expressed concern with President Bush’s proposed 2007 budget for science programs at NASA. While saying he was “elated” by the President’s proposal for overall spending on science research and education in fiscal […]

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