Principal Investigator Team Masters Forum 1

Speakers

• Noel W. Hinners, Panel Chair, consults for NASA, the aerospace industry, and 4-D Systems, which supports the NASA Academy of Program/Project and Engineering Leadership. He retired in January 2002 from Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, where he was vice president of flight systems with primary responsibility for their NASA missions. He joined Martin Marietta Corporate as vice president of strategic planning in 1989. Dr. Hinners has served as NASA associate deputy administrator and chief scientist, director of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, director of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, NASA’s associate administrator for Space Science, and director of Lunar Programs. Before entering
  government service, he was department head of Lunar Exploration with Bellcomm, Inc., which he joined as a member of the technical staff in 1963. At Bellcomm, he was responsible for Apollo lunar science formulation and Apollo site selection support to NASA. Dr. Hinners was the founding editor of Geophysical Research Letters, a rapid-publication journal of the American Geophysical Union, and founding president of the Maryland and Colorado Space Business Roundtables. He has been on and chaired oodles of space-related committees and has published on NASA programs. He currently serves on the executive committee of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group and chairs the External Advisory Board of the University of Colorado Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department. He is the executive secretary of the NASA Chief Engineer’s Management Operations Working Group.
• John C. Mather is the senior project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope at Goddard Space Flight Center and chief scientist of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. His research centers on infrared astronomy and cosmology. As an NRC postdoctoral fellow at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (New York City), he led the proposal efforts from 1974 to 1976 for the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) and came to Goddard to be the study scientist (19761988), project scientist (19881998), and principal investigator for the Far IR Absolute Spectrophotometer on COBE. He showed that the cosmic microwave background radiation has a blackbody spectrum within 50 parts per million, confirming the big bang theory to extraordinary accuracy. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Nobel Prize in Physics (2006) with George Smoot, for the COBE work, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal (2007). He is a member of many professional societies, including the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Swarthmore College with highest honors in physics in 1968 and his PhD in physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1974. His doctoral advisor was Paul Richards, and his thesis on measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation led directly to the COBE satellite.
• Dennis K. McCarthy has had the fortunate experience to work in the federal government and academia, as well as industry. He is currently a consultant to NASA to review specific programs. He was in industry as the Swales Aerospace vice president, director of engineering. Prior to that, he was at Johns Hopkins University as the Program Director for the first PI program at a University: the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer. Before that Mr. McCarthy was in the federal government at Goddard Space Flight Center. He served as the deputy associate director of flight projects for Hubble Space Telescope in 1994. Previously, he was the deputy project manager for the Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. Other positions he held include associate director for the Space Sciences Directorate and deputy project manager for the Cosmic Background Explorer, which won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006.

Abstracts

• Dr. John Mather discussed the challenges of organizing and running two teams: the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) science team and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) science team. COBE’s three instruments presented unique challenges. Each instrument had its own PI, so there were different executive styles, which Dr. Mather also compared. Also, the Science Working Group was constituted as co-investigator on all three instruments, so there were team-level challenges and significant conflicts to be managed, as documented in the book The Very First Light: The True Inside Story of the Scientific Journey Back to the Dawn of the Universe.Two of the PIs were in house at Goddard Space Flight Center, leading to excellent communication with the engineering teams, while one PI was external at Berkeley, leading to significant difficulties that had to be managed by recruiting an in-house deputy PI. The special situation of a government team being led by an external investigator required serious negotiation, since NASA does not delegate management of its civil service staff to outside people. The whole science team played a major role in project decisions regarding improving the instrument sensitivity for the DMR instrument (a good thing, otherwise the DMR would not have detected cosmic fluctuations).On the JWST observatory, a strategic mission for NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, the science team is advisory, and team members are not co-investigators on all the instruments. The comparison was illustrative.
• Program Management of Robotic Missions: Dennis McCarthy discussed several aspects of program management for robotic missions. His topics included using a systematic approach involving three phases: evaluation, validation and verification, and benchmarks; defining responsibilities of line and project management in the successful organization; and handling “the people problem” during the formulation and implementation phases. He also discussed what is involved in creating a work agreement, including predicting management success, achieving program excellence, and understanding root causes, systems engineering and its various phases, NASA governance, and requirements.

Presentations

• COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) and JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) Science [John Mather] (PDF)
• Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) [Dennis McCarthy] (PDF)

Speakers

• John C. Mather, Panel Chair, is the senior project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope at Goddard Space Flight Center and chief scientist of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. His research centers on infrared astronomy and cosmology. As an NRC postdoctoral fellow at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (New York City), he led the proposal efforts from 1974 to 1976 for the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) and came to Goddard to be the study scientist (19761988), project scientist (19881998), and principal investigator for the Far IR Absolute Spectrophotometer on COBE. He showed that the cosmic microwave background radiation has a blackbody spectrum within 50 parts per million, confirming the big bang theory to extraordinary accuracy. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Nobel Prize in Physics (2006) with George Smoot, for the COBE work, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal (2007). He is a member of many professional societies, including the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Swarthmore College with highest honors in physics in 1968 and his PhD in physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1974. His doctoral advisor was Paul Richards, and his thesis on measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation led directly to the COBE satellite.
• For the past forty-four years, M. Patrick McCormick has been performing research on the development and application of sensors for measurement in the earth’s atmosphere. This research has primarily focused on lidar and satellite limb extinction (occultation) techniques for global characterization of aerosols, clouds, ozone, and other atmospheric species. His research areas include the development of aerosol, ozone, and water vapor trends and climatologies; the study of polar stratospheric clouds and their characterization; and the role of aerosols in climate, cloud properties, and atmospheric chemistry. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, and a member of NASA’s NAC Earth Science Subcommittee. Dr. McCormick is principal investigator for SAM II, SAGE I, SAGE II, SAGE III, and LITE, and coprincipal investigator for SAM and CALIPSO satellite experiments. He is the recipient of the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (1981), the American Meteorological Society’s Jule G. Charney Award (1991), the NASA Space Act Award (1994), the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal (1996), the NASA and Department of the Interior William T. Pecora Award (1996), the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal (2000), and the American Meteorological Society’s Remote Sensing Lecturer Award (2000). Dr. McCormick has published more than 430 papers, journal articles, NASA publications, and books, including 270 refereed journal publications.
• Steve Saunders was a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena for thirty-two years. At JPL he was project scientist for the Magellan Venus mission and the Mars Odyssey mission. After leaving JPL, he worked at NASA Headquarters for five years, where he was NASA program scientist for the Planetary Data System, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and Mars Express. He also managed NASA’s Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program, which supports about 170 U.S. scientists. Mr. Saunders was the recipient of two NASA Exceptional Service Medals and the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement medal. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin and after serving in the Peace Corps as a geologist in Ghana went on to Brown University for his PhD in geology. Mr. Saunders currently is employed by the Lunar and Planetary Institute and spends much of his time analyzing some of the Mars and Venus data he has helped to collect. He spends his free time blacksmithing and doing other metal arts work in Edgerton, Wisconsin, where he has a home and shop.
• G. Scott Hubbard has been an innovator and leader in science, technology, and management for more than thirty years, including twenty years with NASA. He currently is a professor in the department of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University. From 2002 to 2006, Mr. Hubbard was the director of Ames Research Center with an operating budget of $700 million and responsibility for 2,600 people. In 2003 he served as the sole NASA representative on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, where he directed impact testing that demonstrated the definitive physical cause of the loss of Columbia. In 2000 he served as NASA’s first Mars program director and successfully restructured the entire Mars program in the wake of mission failures. He is the founder of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute, establishing it in 1998. He conceived the Mars Pathfinder mission with its airbag landing and was the manager for NASA’s highly successful Lunar Prospector Mission. Earlier, Mr. Hubbard led a start-up high-technology company in the San Francisco Bay area and was a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Nat. Lab. He has received many honors, including NASA’s highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal. He was elected to the International Academy of Astronautics, is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and was also awarded the Von Karman medal by the AIAA. He has authored more than fifty scientific papers on research and technology. Mr. Hubbard received his undergraduate degree in physics and astronomy at Vanderbilt University and his graduate education in semiconductor physics at the UC Berkeley. He continues his forty-year interest in music by regularly playing guitar in a jazz group.
• Orlando Figueroa is director of Applied Engineering and Technology at Goddard Space Flight Center. His past experiences include the following positions at NASA Headquarters: deputy associate administrator for programs in the Science Mission Directorate, director for the Solar System Exploration Division, director for Mars Exploration, and NASA Deputy Chief Engineer for systems engineering. Experience prior to NASA Headquarters include twenty-two years at Goddard as head of the Cryogenics Technology Section; lead cryogenic engineer for the Cosmic Background Explorer mission; manager for the Superfluid Helium On Orbit Transfer shuttle experiment; manager for the Small Explorers (SMEX) project; Explorers program manager; and director of Systems, Technology, and Advanced Concepts.He obtained a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, and completed advanced courses in mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland. He received an honorary doctorate degree in science from Dominican College in New York in 2004. Mr. Figueroa has received numerous awards, including Distinguished (2004) and Meritorious (2000) Presidential Rank Awards, NASA Outstanding Leadership Medals in 1993 and 2004, the 2004 Community Stars Award from the Maryland Science Week Commission, the 2002 Pioneer Award from the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corporation. Hispanic Business Magazine named him one the most influential Hispanics in the Nation in 2004 and 2005. He is the author of several technical publications in the field of cryogenics, the SMEX missions, and the Mars Exploration Program.
• Nick Smith has twenty-four years of experience at Lockheed Martin, working in mission analysis and systems engineering. Flight programs have included the Space Shuttle solid booster parachute system, the Mars Global Surveyor mission, the Stardust comet sample return mission, and the Genesis solar wind sample return mission. Advanced mission studies have included Lunar Resource Mapper, Solar Probe, Saturn Miniprobe, and Mars Sample Return. Mr. Smith currently manages the Advanced Planetary Programs group at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, responsible for developing advanced concepts and proposals for missions such as Phoenix, Juno, and GRAIL. He holds a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering.
• Mike Miller has been involved with multiple NASA explorer programs and PI missions over his twenty-nine-year career with Fairchild and Orbital Sciences, where he is currently senior vice president, science and technology. He began his career in support of the Goddard Space Flight Center Landsat-4/5 program and participated in the development of the spacecraft busses for the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite and the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer. He was involved with the development of satellite servicing equipment for the Solar Maximum Repair mission and was the program manager for the development of the Space Support Equipment for the first Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. Mr. Miller was initially the lead systems engineer for the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) and eventually the program manager for the FUSE spacecraft. After successful completion of the FUSE development, he was responsible for the development of all NASA satellites within Orbital, including the Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor Satellite, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment, the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere, and the Dawn interplanetary asteroid rendezvous satellite. He is currently responsible for the development of the Interstellar Boundary Explorer, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, the Glory spacecraft, and the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array spacecraft. The support of three of the current Phase-A SMEX studies are within Mr. Miller’s responsibility at Orbital. This experience has seen a wide variety of spacecraft, instrument, and PI teams taking different paths to success.
• Roy A. Maizel is the Science Mission Directorate’s deputy associate administrator for management, a position he has held since June 2008. In this capacity he is responsible for the oversight of the Directorate’s $4+ billion annual budget, strategic planning, policy development, and the provision of administrative support to the Directorate’s 200-person Headquarters workforce. He also serves as a management focal point for institutional issues at the two NASA field centers where science is the largest element of the business base: the Goddard Space Flight Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.Mr. Maizel holds a BA in political science and an MS in public policy analysis, both from the University of Rochester. He joined NASA in 1981 as a presidential management intern and acquired extensive experience as a program analyst on several projects within the Space Shuttle program. Since 1988 he has held a series of progressively responsible management positions in the Space Shuttle, International Space Station, Earth Science, and Space Science Programs. When the Earth Science and Space Science programs merged in 2004 to become the Science Mission Directorate, Mr. Maizel became director of the Business Management Division. Following a reorganization and consolidation of functions, he became director of the Management and Policy Division in 2006. Mr. Maizel is the recipient of numerous awards, including NASA’s Exceptional Service Medal in 2005.

Abstracts

• Principal Investigator
  Pat McCormick, Hampton University, gave an overview of the building of a PI-led team for a NASA mission, as well as the important relationships the PI has with the PM and systems engineer. PI traits, qualities, and responsibilities were addressed, followed by a discussion of how a PI chooses the science team and structures the mission team. Other topics included developing a clear Mission Requirements Document and the process and importance of descoping. Finally, the importance of the total involvement and perseverance of the PI in following the mission development were discussed, along with key indicators of mission development status (e.g., the use of “planned” versus “actual” monthly milestone accomplishments).
• Project Scientist
  Steve Saunders, Lunar and Planetary Institute, spoke about his experience and lessons learned as project scientist during the Mars Odyssey mission and described the duties of a planetary mission project scientist.
• Lunar ProspectorManaging a Very Low-Cost Planetary Mission
  G. Scott Hubbard, Stanford University, described the Lunar Prospectorthe first competitively selected planetary mission in NASA’s Discovery Programwith emphasis on the lessons learned from managing a very low-cost project. Developed during the height of the faster-better-cheaper era, some pitfalls of this philosophy and the mechanisms by which they were avoided were highlighted. Insights into governmentindustry teaming and program and project management were discussed in some detail. The importance of team chemistry and the roles and responsibilities of NASA Headquarters, NASA field centers, and academic and industrial partners were also examined. The mission description, spacecraft design, and the suite of five instruments were outlined briefly, as well as the scientific measurements of lunar water/ice, key elemental constituents, and maps of the moon’s gravitational fields.
• Systems Engineering
  Orlando Figueroa, Goddard Space Flight Center, spoke about the role of the systems engineerone of the most important responsibilities within the PI-led team. Drawing on his experience in numerous capacities, including program and project management and on a number of science missions at multiple levels of scale, Orlando Figueroa has consistently used systems engineering throughout the mission development process to ensure its success. He also has overall responsibility for the development of systems engineers at Goddard Space Flight Center. He discussed the key roles of the systems engineer and the importance of the systems engineering process in the development of a space science flight mission.
• Contractor Team
  Nick Smith, Lockheed Martin, and Mike Miller, Orbital Sciences Corporation, discussed the role of industry in the PI-led team. With highly focused mission objectives, PI-led missions enable high-payoff science that otherwise might not fit within typical directed missions. Industry is a valuable member of the PI-led mission team and provides a perspective independent from project and science members, based on a culture evolved from a different set of experiences. Driven by the unique risk/reward perspective associated with fee-based incentives, industry is motivated to push for the early flowdown of science requirements, the development of a mission concept that balances complexity and cost, and judicious infusion of new technology. Industry is also able to leverage results from internal research funding and developments from non-NASA programs. Examples included FUSE and AIMthe experience gained from problems during these missions and the ways the problems were successfully solved.
• Project Resource Controls
  Roy Maizel, NASA Headquarters, spoke about how successful project resources control on NASA projects is grounded not just in the application of specific cost monitoring and control techniques, but in a thorough understanding of both the external and internal environments in which NASA projects are approved, formulated, developed, and operated. NASA is a part of the discretionary component of the federal budget and operates in a very constrained budgetary environment. It is therefore imperative that projects be managed within their approved budgets. Recently NASA has been making greater use of Earned Valued Management (EVM). EVM provides basic quantitative measures of cost and schedule performance, a useful “early warning system” showing whether a project is likely to meet cost and schedule targets. In addition to EVM, monthly (or more frequent) monitoring of workforce utilization, reserves on cost-to-go, liens against reserves, cost burn rate, accomplishment of key milestones, etc., followed by prompt management action are all essential elements of cost and schedule control. Successful project resources control consists of a careful balance between implementing cost control measures such as timely application of reserves, descopes, changes in the test program, etc., while identifying and managing risks at an acceptable level.

Presentations

• PI-Team Composition: Principal Investigator (Pat McCormick) (PDF)
• Project Scientist Role (Steve Saunders) (PDF)
• Lunar Prospector: Managing a Very Low-Cost Mission (G. Scott Hubbard)
• Systems Engineering: From Technical Architect to Technical AuthorityA Lifecycle Focus on Mission Success (Orlando Figueroa) (PDF)
• Industry Role in PI-Led Missions (Nick Smith) (PDF)
• Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer Spacecraft Development (Mike Miller) (PDF)
• Project Resources Control: Presentation to PI Team Master’s Forum (Roy A. Maizel) (PDF)

Speakers

• Richard W. Zurek, Panel Chair, is currently the chief scientist for the Mars Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. He also serves as the project scientist for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), now in its second year of observations of the atmosphere, surface, and subsurface of Mars. While at JPL, Dr. Zurek has studied the atmospheres of Earth and Mars, including the causes and effects of the great dust storms that occur episodically on Mars. Previously, he served as the project scientist for the Mars Surveyor ’98 missions and as a theoretical investigator on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, helping to pioneer studies separating transport from photochemical effects on ozone change as observed from space. He has been heavily involved in the development and implementation of recent missions to Mars, including lead of atmospheric advisory groups supporting the aerobraking phases of the Mars Global Surveyor, the 2001 Mars Odyssey, and MRO spacecraft. These activities, together with his published research, have led to appointments at JPL as a senior research scientist and a JPL Fellow. Dr. Zurek holds a PhD in atmospheric sciences from the University of Washington (Seattle) and has been employed at JPL since 1976.
• Formerly Chairman and CEO of the electronics firm, nVIEW Corporation, Angelo (Gus) Guastaferro is experienced in technology management. He served as vice president with the Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space Company and was deputy director of the NASA Ames Research Center. Mr. Guastaferro is also experienced in project and program management and was involved in the Viking mission to Mars and in Large Space Structures; he also served as director of Planetary Programs while at NASA. He is currently consulting for NASA on future space systems and serving as Chair Emeritus of Hampton Roads Technology Council and Director, Virginia Technology Alliances. He has a BSME from the New Jersey Institute of Technology; MBA from Florida State University; and AMP from Harvard Business School.
• Dennis Matson earned his bachelor’s degree in physics at San Diego State University in 1964. He came to Caltech and in 1972 received a PhD in planetary science. Since then he has carried on observations of solar system bodies and has developed methods for the interpretation of remote-sensing data. He has used imaging, spectrophotometry, radiometry, and spectroscopy in determinations of the surface states and compositions of atmosphereless solar system bodies; participated in the development of instrumentation for astronomical telescopes and spacecraft; and carried out scientific investigations using the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) and the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) in orbit about the earth and with the Galileo and Cassini-Huygens spacecraft in the outer solar system. During the four-year Cassini-Huygens nominal mission, Dr. Matson served as the project scientist, leading more than 270 scientists in the United States and in Europe in carrying out Cassini’s investigations. Currently, he is the study scientist for the Titan and Saturn System Mission, the next flagship mission to the Saturnian system, and a senior research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
• Peter H. Smith is a senior research scientist at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona. He received his master’s degree in optical sciences from the University of Arizona in 1977 and has participated in numerous space missions. Most notable has been his involvement with Mars instrumentation, starting with the Imager for Mars Pathfinder in 1993. After a successful mission in 1997, he built cameras for the Mars Polar Lander mission that failed to return data in 1999. His camera for the 2001 mission never flew due to cancellation of the project. He is now the principal investigator for NASA’s Scout mission, called Phoenix. He was also recently awarded the first Thomas R. Brown Distinguished Chair of Integrated Science at the University of Arizona.

Abstracts

• VikingManaging Critical Resource Allocations
  Gus Guastaferro, NASA Academy of Program/Project and Engineering Leadership and NASA retiree, illustrated the techniques critical to managing resources of PI-led space science projects by examining the resource management of a large space science project. The techniques successfully applied on Viking stand as a model for application to smaller science space projects. The conclusion provided participants with a list of lessons learned that can be applied to future space science programs.
• CassiniFree-Market Resource Allocations
  Dennis Matson, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, described the challenge in handling the resource margins for the Cassini payload instruments. The solution was the Resources Trading System (RTS). The payload manager allocated payload resources (e.g., space, weight, power). The process began with a delivery contract between the project and the instrument provider (typically a principal investigator). Margin consisted of dollars by fiscal year, mass, power, and data rate. The entire margin was distributed proportionally to the instruments. An exchange was set up to facilitate trading margin among the instruments and also with the “spacecraft.” If instrument A had “excess” mass, the PI could place a “sell” offer on the exchange, stating the amount of mass and the price (e.g., $, W, bps). If instrument B was short of mass and its PI liked the price, he could “buy.” The payload manager then recorded the “trade,” and the official allocations to A and B were changed accordingly. This was a win-win situation as each party felt that they had improved their balance of resources. Anticipation of future developments was important. Details of this system and its effectiveness were also presented.
• PhoenixEstablishing Adequate Margins
  Peter Smith, University of Arizona, spoke about how the Phoenix project leveraged existing resources from the Mars Polar Lander and the Surveyor 2001 Lander projects to keep costs low. When combined with an exciting science goal of verifying the water ice discovery of Odyssey to assess the habitability of the northern arctic, the proposal was strong enough to win the first Scout competition in August 2003. Heritage allowed accurate margin estimates concerning mass, power, and schedule. Phase A, the second stage of the proposal process, was rushed and poorly funded, leaving the team to make educated guesses regarding the costs of various elements of the project. Major challenges presented themselves in the changing rules regarding risk postures tolerated by NASA management, especially with the unavoidable complexity of a Mars landing. Despite the hand-wringing and worry, a flawless, safe landing was achieved and the mission neared full success as this abstract was being written.

Presentations

• PI Leadership: A Shared Experience in Project Leadership (Gus Guastaferro) (PDF)
• Cassini Free Market Resource Allocation (Dennis Matson) (PDF)

Speakers

• Edward Rogers, Panel Chair is the knowledge management architect at Goddard Space Flight Center. He received a PhD from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations focusing on the role of cooperation in high-tech firms. In the early 1980s he performed five years of international relief work in Southern Lebanon. Prior to returning to academic work at Cornell, Dr. Rogers operated a private consulting practice focused on knowledge workers and intelligent enterprise. His research and publications apply game theory models to human behavior in organizations. He has consulted with a number of organizations on building conceptual transparency and leveraging collective knowledge. Before joining NASA, he taught strategic management and entrepreneurship at Cornell, Duke, and the University of Alabama in Huntsville.The Office of the Chief Knowledge Officer (OCKO) provides the center with knowledge management services and support, managing intellectual assets, facilitating the application of knowledge, and enhancing Goddard’s development as a learning organization. One of the office’s primary activities is the Road to Mission Success workshop series, which gives upcoming Goddard leaders an integrated perspective on mission success, from procurement and administration to science and mission operations. The office also conducts Knowledge Sharing Workshops, open to everyone on center, which provide discussion forums on relevant topics or recently launched Goddard missions. Both types of workshops make use of case studies, also produced by the OCKO, to enhance participants’ learning. The OCKO’s other main initiative is the Pause & Learn, a facilitated team meeting used to transfer individual lessons about a specific project event. In addition to introducing this practice at Goddard, the OCKO has also partnered with ESMD to spread the practice to Marshall Space Flight Center and Johnson Space Center.
• Steve Jolly is with Lockheed Martin Space Systems (LMSS) in the Sensors and Space Exploration Systems line of business. He has twenty-six years of experience in spacecraft and launch vehicles from concept through flight operations. He is currently program manager for the Mars Science Lab Aeroshell and for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). He was most recently chief system engineer for the GOES-R program, which completed its risk reduction phase in 2007. Dr. Jolly was chief systems engineer and deputy program manager for MRO during development, and the spacecraft is now one and a half years into its mapping and relay phase at Mars. Coming off the Mars ’98 failures, he served as risk manager for the successful Mars Odyssey, which has now completed its primary mission and is in extended mission phase. Dr. Jolly was an assistant research professor of aerospace engineering sciences at the University of Colorado prior to joining LMSS. He was also a faculty member of the NASA Center for Space Construction and a NASA summer faculty fellow of Marshall Space Flight Center. He is currently on the graduate faculty of engineering at CU-Denver, having completed development of a systems engineering curriculum. He has a BS in aerospace engineering from CU-Boulder, an MS from Florida Institute of Technology, and a PhD in aerospace engineering sciences from CU-Boulder.
• Dennis K. McCarthy has had the fortunate experience to work in the federal government and academia, as well as industry. He is currently a consultant to NASA to review specific programs. He was in industry as the Swales Aerospace vice president, director of engineering. Prior to that, he was at Johns Hopkins University as the Program Director for the first PI program at a University: the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer. Before that Mr. McCarthy was in the federal government at Goddard Space Flight Center. He served as the deputy associate director of flight projects for Hubble Space Telescope in 1994. Previously, he was the deputy project manager for the Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. Other positions he held include associate director for the Space Sciences Directorate and deputy project manager for the Cosmic Background Explorer, which won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006.
• Donald S. Burnett is a professor of the Geochemistry, Geological, and Planetary Sciences Division at the California Institute of Technology and is the PI of the Genesis Discovery mission. He has more than forty years of research experience in planetary science.
• Richard S. Grammier is the project manager for the Juno project (New Frontiers Program) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory ( JPL). Prior to this position, he served JPL in numerous capacities, including Deep Impact project manager, deputy director for the Solar System Exploration Directorate, manager of JPL’s Mission Assurance Division, project system engineer and deputy project manager of the Stardust project, and project element manager for the Cassini Command and Data Handling Subsystem. Mr. Grammier received his BS degree from the United States Military Academy and an MS in electrical and computer engineering from California State Polytechnic University. He has been awarded the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal for Cassini and two NASA Outstanding Leadership medals for his accomplishments on Stardust and Deep Impact.

Abstracts

• The Upside/Downside of Faster, Better, Cheaper
  Steve Jolly, Lockheed Martin, addressed several questions regarding the “faster-better-cheaper” (FBC) approach of the 1990s. The failures of the Mars ’98 missions (MCO and MPL) are so well known that they have essentially become urban legends. Many today proclaim that not only is it impossible to achieve all three dimensions of the faster-better-cheaper mantra of the 1990s, but that FBC in fact died spectacularly and permanently with the loss of those missions. But what really happened to those missions? What is the legacy for today’s projects that came from those disasters? Or was a “stake” put in the heart of the beast, and have we done an about-face, returning to the formulae of the 1960s and 1970s? After nearly ten years to reflect on changes that have been made in project management, systems engineering, and verification and validation, what is the prognosis? How is the exponential advance in flight and ground technologies affecting the practice of these principles?
• Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE)
  Dennis McCarthy, Consultant, shared details about the FUSE mission and lessons learned.
• The Genesis Discovery MissionSummary, Status, and Lessons Learned
  Don Burnett, California Institute of Technology, discussed the Genesis mission, which was number five in NASA’s Discovery series of low-cost missions. In many respects Genesis was a Discovery Program poster child, simple and focused on a single goal: returning solar matter to Earth for analysis in terrestrial laboratories. Pure collector materials were exposed to the solar wind, which is a plasma flowing continuously from the sun that contains all the elements of the periodic table. In September 2004, after an essentially perfect flight phase, the Genesis mission literally hit bottom with the crash of the Sample Recovery Capsule during recovery. At that point, again quite literally, the project team went out and picked up the pieces and started the road back. Although the team had a long way to go to meet science objectives, they made significant progress since then. With a little luck, the main result of the crash was to slow down the team, to delay the completion of the original measurement objectives. Although unplanned, they ended up where many other missions plan to be. They made things work, completed the first round of data taking in the main mission, and are ready for the extended mission.
• Deep Impact
  Rick Grammier, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, addressed the question: How do you hit an object zipping through space at 23,000 mph, 268 million miles from Earth, and capture what happens after the impact with a camera 300 miles away? In 1999, a team of more than 250 scientists, engineers, managers, and educators set out to meet that challenge and discover what exists inside a comet. A firstofitskind mission and tight budget weren’t the only challenges awaiting Mr. Grammier when he joined the team as project manager in January 2004. The launch had already been delayed one year. If Tempel 1, the target for Deep Impact, sped beyond a reachable orbit from Earth, the team would have to wait another five and a half years before the comet would circle around again. With the project already at risk of being canceled by NASA Headquarters due to significant financial overruns, a fiveyear delay was not an option. With one year remaining until Deep Impact’s last chance for launch, he faced a project with a fractured team and split responsibilities, incomplete development of flight avionics hardware and software, and a systemlevel verification and validation program that had not yet begun. Rick discussed the efforts the team made to get things back on track, which led to a successful launch and then comet impact on July 4, 2005.

Presentations

• The Upside/Downside of Faster, Better, Cheaper (Dr. Steve Jolly) (PDF)
• FUSE: The Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (Dennis McCarthy, Dr. Warren Moos) (PDF)
• Genesis: Search for OriginsReturn of Solar Matter to Earth, Understanding the Transition between Star and Planet (Don S. Burnett) (PDF)
• The Success of the Deep Impact Mission: A Study of Risk Management Processes (Rick Grammmier) (PDF)

Speakers

• Richard S. Grammier, Panel Chair, is the project manager for the Juno project (New Frontiers Program) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory ( JPL). Prior to this position, he served JPL in numerous capacities, including Deep Impact project manager, deputy director for the Solar System Exploration Directorate, manager of JPL’s Mission Assurance Division, project system engineer and deputy project manager of the Stardust project, and project element manager for the Cassini Command and Data Handling Subsystem. Mr. Grammier received his BS degree from the United States Military Academy and an MS in electrical and computer engineering from California State Polytechnic University. He has been awarded the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal for Cassini and two NASA Outstanding Leadership medals for his accomplishments on Stardust and Deep Impact.
• James M. Russell III’s research has focused on atmospheric science, remote sensing, and satellite data analysis to study properties and processes in Earth’s atmosphere. He began his career in electrical engineering at Langley Research Center, developing instrumentation and performing ground and rocket reentry tests of heat shield material used on the Gemini and Apollo capsules. He also worked on instrumentation for characterizing the Martian atmosphere during entry.Dr. Russell has served as co-PI on the Nimbus-7 LIMS experiment to study odd nitrogen effects on the ozone layer and PI for the HALOE experiment on the UARS satellite to study odd chlorine and odd nitrogen effects on ozone. He currently serves as PI for the SABER experiment on the TIMED satellite to study the chemistry, dynamics, and energetics of the thermosphere and mesosphere and PI on the AIM mission to study noctilucent clouds. He also served as co-investigator on the JPL ATMOS experiment launched on the Space Shuttle and the Oxford University ISAMS experiment launched on the UARS satellite, to study the chemistry and dynamics of the stratospheric ozone layer.Dr. Russell served as head of the Chemistry and Dynamics Branch and the Theoretical Studies Branch in the Langley Atmospheric Sciences Division and currently is a professor of atmospheric and planetary sciences and co-director of the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at Hampton University in Virginia. He received a BSEE degree from Virginia Tech, an MSEE degree from the University of Virginia, and a PhD in aeronomy from the University of Michigan. He is author or co-author of more than 360 papers in the scientific literature, including first authorship of the most cited paper in all of geosciences during the period 19912001. He has received the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal; the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal; the Virginia 2008 Outstanding Scientist Award; and the University of Michigan, College of Engineering, Alumni Merit Award.
• Andrew Cheng is the chief scientist for the Space Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). He now serves as the department’s external liaison for space science and provides independent science advice and strategic vision to APL and department leadership. Dr. Cheng brings considerable experience to the position, having been an interdisciplinary scientist on the Galileo mission to Jupiter, a co-investigator on the Cassini mission to Saturn, and a scientist on the Japanese-led MUSES-C asteroid mission. He was project scientist for the historic Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission, which was the first to orbit (and eventually land on) an asteroid. He is a member of the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission team and principal investigator for the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager instrument on the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. He also completed a one-year assignment at NASA Headquarters, serving as deputy chief scientist for Space Science in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Dr. Cheng was named Maryland Academy of Sciences Outstanding Young Scientist in 1985 and has received five NASA Group Achievement awards since then. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and has authored more than 160 scientific articles. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Princeton University and a master’s and doctorate in physics from Columbia University.
• Richard W. Zurek is currently the chief scientist for the Mars Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. He also serves as the project scientist for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), now in its second year of observations of the atmosphere, surface, and subsurface of Mars. While at JPL, Dr. Zurek has studied the atmospheres of Earth and Mars, including the causes and effects of the great dust storms that occur episodically on Mars. Previously, he served as the project scientist for the Mars Surveyor ’98 missions and as a theoretical investigator on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, helping to pioneer studies separating transport from photochemical effects on ozone change as observed from space. He has been heavily involved in the development and implementation of recent missions to Mars, including lead of atmospheric advisory groups supporting the aerobraking phases of the Mars Global Surveyor, the 2001 Mars Odyssey, and MRO spacecraft. These activities, together with his published research, have led to appointments at JPL as a senior research scientist and a JPL Fellow. Dr. Zurek holds a PhD in atmospheric sciences from the University of Washington (Seattle) and has been employed at JPL since 1976.

Abstracts

• AIM
  Jim Russell, Hampton University, discussed his experience sand lessons learned from the SMEX AIM mission. The development of a satellite mission comes with many challenges even when everything develops as expected. Virtually always, however, the expected does not occur. Instrument sensitivities do not materialize as expected; pointing systems underperform; interactions among payload, spacecraft, and the launch vehicle create vibrational loads that threaten the integrity of the observatory; and looming cost overruns require compromises to be made in the hardware and science return. In order to develop and implement a robust mission, the unexpected must always be under consideration. Workaround approaches, design alternatives, team adjustments, and close attention to detail are essential in order to successfully implement a mission.
• NEAR
  Andrew Cheng, Applied Physics Laboratory described how using six highly specialized instruments to gather data about its primary targetasteroid 433 Erosthe Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission was designed to answer many fundamental questions about the nature and origin of asteroids and comets. It was the first of NASA’s Discovery missions and the first mission ever to go into orbit around an asteroid. The ultimate goal of the mission was to rendezvous with and achieve orbit around the near-Earth asteroid 433 Eros in January 1999 and study the asteroid for approximately one year. A problem caused an abort of the first encounter burn and the mission had to be rescoped for a December 1998 flyby of Eros and a later encounter and orbit on February 14, 2000. Prior to its encounter with Eros, NEAR flew within 1,200 km of the C-class asteroid 253 Mathilde in June 1997. It then flew by Earth in January 1998. The NEAR mission is remembered as the first to orbit an asteroid successfully and also to land on one successfully, but those of us who lived NEAR (we did not just work on NEAR) remember it as both the best of times and the worst of times. Andrew Cheng shared recollections of the good and the bad, with the common theme that the unexpected always happens.
• Mars Science Mission Examples
  Rich Zurek, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explained how the unexpected can come in many forms: failure in an instrument or spacecraft system; successful overachievement in the form of spacecraft capabilities or lifetime; and unanticipated interactions in complex systems, including interactive operations. To deal with these different categories typically requires one or more of the following resources: redundant critical hardware; flexible systems; margins in power, mass, and telecommunications; imaginative expertise; and, ultimately, trade-offs in science return. Many examples from several missions were discussed in terms of overall strategies for dealing with the unexpected, both good and bad, including Phoenix, Mars Exploration Rovers, and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Presentations

• Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) Mission Responses to the Unexpected (James M. Russell III) (PDF)
• Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous: First Launch of Discovery Program (Andrew Cheng, Thomas Coughlin) (PDF)
• Responding to the Unexpected: Examples from the Mars Exploration Program (Richard Zurek) (PDF)

Speakers

• Andrew Cheng, Panel Chair, is the chief scientist for the Space Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). He now serves as the department’s external liaison for space science and provides independent science advice and strategic vision to APL and department leadership. Dr. Cheng brings considerable experience to the position, having been an interdisciplinary scientist on the Galileo mission to Jupiter, a co-investigator on the Cassini mission to Saturn, and a scientist on the Japanese-led MUSES-C asteroid mission. He was project scientist for the historic Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission, which was the first to orbit (and eventually land on) an asteroid. He is a member of the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission team and principal investigator for the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager instrument on the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. He also completed a one-year assignment at NASA Headquarters, serving as deputy chief scientist for Space Science in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Dr. Cheng was named Maryland Academy of Sciences Outstanding Young Scientist in 1985 and has received five NASA Group Achievement awards since then. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and has authored more than 160 scientific articles. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Princeton University and a master’s and doctorate in physics from Columbia University.
• Paul Hertz is chief scientist for the Science Mission Directorate (SMD). He manages Directorate-level science activities, including the solicitation, evaluation, and selection process for SMD; the SMD Science Management Council; and SMD’s research policies and procedures. He is the Directorate lead for Agencywide science activities, including grants activities, peer review services, and postdoctoral and graduate student fellowship programs. He joined the NASA Office of Space Science as a senior scientist in 2000. He later served as theme scientist for the Structure and Evolution of the Universe Theme as well as senior scientist in the Astronomy and Physics Division. Other positions he has held include program executive for the Chandra X-ray Observatory, senior scientist for Space Science Research in the Research Program Management Division, program executive for Solar System Exploration missions, SOFIA program scientist, Discovery program scientist, and Explorer program scientist. From 1997 to 1999, he served a two-year detail at NASA Headquarters.Dr. Hertz holds bachelor’s degrees in physics and mathematics from MIT, and he received his master’s and doctorate degrees in astronomy from Harvard University. He is a recipient of the Meritorious Presidential Rank Award, the Robert J. Trumpler Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the Alan Berman Research Publication Award of the Naval Research Laboratory (twice), three NASA Group Achievement Awards, and third place in the Naval Research Laboratory’s Science as Art contest.
• Michael Salamon is program scientist for Physics of the Cosmos in the Astrophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.
• David Beaty is the Mars chief scientist and Mars program science manager for the Mars Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His educational history includes a 1975 BA from Dartmouth College and a 1980 PhD from Caltech in geology and geochemistry. As a scientist, he spent five years working in the Apollo program analyzing the returned lunar samples. He then spent a number of years researching new methods of exploring for, and assessing, natural resources on Earth, including for both metallic ore deposits and oil/gas. This work led to a familiarity with a wide range of exploration methodologies, including geophysics, organic and inorganic geochemistry, sedimentary and igneous geology, and the history and evolution of the Earth. For the past decade, Mr. Beaty has been involved in the exploration of Mars. His first assignment was as the project manager for the ground segment of MSR, and he has since moved into strategic planning. He has approximately 120 scientific publications.Mr. Beaty also has extensive experience as a science manager, built up through assignments of progressively increasing responsibility, including team leader, division manager, project manager, lab director (acting), program science manager, and chief scientist. His management experience was built in three quite different kinds of organizations. From his industrial experience, he learned the strengths and weaknesses of team-based management, process-based management, and structured decision analysis. From the science professional societies, he learned the methods of consensus building and multidisciplinary problem solving. In the NASA JPL system, he has learned about managing the public trust and complex scienceengineering partnerships.
• Clive R. Neal is a lunar scientist with more than twenty years of experience studying lunar samples and more recently geophysics and remote-sensing data. He is currently the chair of NASA’s Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) and also chair of the lunar sample allocation subcommittee of the Curation and Analysis Planning Team for Extraterrestrial Materials. He brings to the PI forum an intricate knowledge of the scientific questions that remain to be answered about the moon and also experience in devising instrumentation for deployment on the lunar surface. In addition, LEAG is currently devising the Lunar Exploration Roadmap for NASA. Professor Neal was educated in England receiving his BS in geology from the University of Leicester and his PhD in Mantle Geochemistry from the University of Leeds. He moved to the United States in 1986 and undertook a four-year post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Tennessee (Knoxville) and moved to Notre Dame in 1990.

Abstracts

• This session addressed the processes that NASA uses to engage the science community in framing its scientific objectives and the development of strategies to meet these objectives. Topics included the NASA Advisory Committee (NAC) and Decadal Planning processes, the mechanisms used to connect with the astrophysics community, as well as the process used in the Planetary Program to facilitate community input on planning for the Mars and Lunar robotics programs and their collaboration with the space exploration mission. Participating in these processes, where possible, permits the opportunity to contribute to the long-term planning for NASA’s Space Science Program, while affording insights into some of the driving scientific rationale for these strategies, which often help shape flight mission opportunities.
• Paul Hertz, NASA Headquarters, spoke about the NAC, the Advisory Committee Process, and Decadal Planning.
• Michael Salamon, NASA Headquarters, discussed Astrophysics.
• MEPAG
  Dave Beaty, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, discussed a key process for engaging the planetary science communitythe so-called “analysis groups,” or AGs. One prominent example is the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG). All the AGs formally report to the Planetary Science Subcommittee (PSS) of the NAC, and the AG chairs are official members of PSS. In the case of MEPAG, meetings are held every six to nine months, which are completely open to the community. Attendance for the past two to three years has averaged about 200. Agenda items typically relate to questions of strategic direction.
• The Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) and the Vision for Space Exploration
  Clive Neal, University of Notre Dame, spoke about the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG), which is responsible for analyzing scientific, technical, commercial, and operational issues associated with lunar exploration in response to requests by NASA. The LEAG serves as a community-based, interdisciplinary forum for future exploration and provides analysis in support of lunar exploration objectives and their implications for lunar architecture planning and activity prioritization. It provides findings and analysis to NASA through the NASA Advisory Council (the Council) within which the LEAG chair is a member of the Planetary Science Subcommittee (PSS). The Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) is currently developing the Lunar Exploration Roadmap at the request of the NASA Advisory Council. This roadmap has heritage back to the Global Exploration Strategy and builds upon previous studies in this area from the 1980s and 1990s. The roadmap has three themes under which there are a number of goals: pursue scientific activities to address fundamental questions about the solar system, the universe, and our place in them; use the moon to prepare for future missions to Mars and other destinations; and extend sustained human presence to the moon to enable eventual settlement. At this time, there are five specific action teams working on these themes and goals to break them down to objectives and investigations. It is planned to have the first draft of the roadmap available by October 2008.

Presentations

• Advisory Committees / Decadal Surveys: Presentation to 2008 PI-Team Masters Forum (Paul Hertz) (PDF)
• Success Strategies for Research and Flight Projects (Dr. Paul Graf) (PDF)
• Lunar Explorer Analysis Group (LEAG) and the Vision for Space Exploration (Clive R. Neal) (PDF)

Speakers

• Paul Hertz, Panel Chair, is chief scientist for the Science Mission Directorate (SMD). He manages Directorate-level science activities, including the solicitation, evaluation, and selection process for SMD; the SMD Science Management Council; and SMD’s research policies and procedures. He is the Directorate lead for Agencywide science activities, including grants activities, peer review services, and postdoctoral and graduate student fellowship programs. He joined the NASA Office of Space Science as a senior scientist in 2000. He later served as theme scientist for the Structure and Evolution of the Universe Theme as well as senior scientist in the Astronomy and Physics Division. Other positions he has held include program executive for the Chandra X-ray Observatory, senior scientist for Space Science Research in the Research Program Management Division, program executive for Solar System Exploration missions, SOFIA program scientist, Discovery program scientist, and Explorer program scientist. From 1997 to 1999, he served a two-year detail at NASA Headquarters.Dr. Hertz holds bachelor’s degrees in physics and mathematics from MIT, and he received his master’s and doctorate degrees in astronomy from Harvard University. He is a recipient of the Meritorious Presidential Rank Award, the Robert J. Trumpler Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the Alan Berman Research Publication Award of the Naval Research Laboratory (twice), three NASA Group Achievement Awards, and third place in the Naval Research Laboratory’s Science as Art contest.
• Paul Graf brings more than twenty-five years of diverse and successful experience to the pursuit, design, development, and operations of civil space projects. As president of Aerospace Solutions, llc, he provides systems engineering, non-advocate review, mentoring, proposal development, and management consulting services to industry and NASA. Dr. Graf has built and delivered flight hardware, bringing knowledge from the inside of how projects set the stage for success. He is experienced with announcement of opportunity missions. He was co-inventor and co-investigator on the Wide-field Infrared Explorer, a SMEX mission. In 1996 he defined the ozone mapping and profiler suite (OMPS is two, UV/visible, spectrometers to measure atmospheric ozone) for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System and for four years led the Ball Aerospace technical team as its chief engineer. Dr. Graf continues to bring best practices to government and corporate systems engineers and project managers to improve their decision confidence and project efficiency. In addition, he is developing both current and next-generation systems engineers by mentoring mid-career NASA engineers and teaching a graduate class in space systems engineering as adjunct faculty at Colorado University, Boulder. He holds a BS in applied and engineering physics and an MS and PhD in astronomy and astrophysics all from Cornell University.
• Edward Hoffman is responsible for the development of program and project leaders and teams within NASA, including the development of a comprehensive program and project management training curriculum, consulting services for project management teams, lessons learned, knowledge capture, and research and special studies on program and project management. He works both within NASA and externally with leaders of industry, academia, and other government agencies to enhance capabilities in program and project management. Mr. Hoffman holds a Doctorate as well as Master of Arts and Master of Science degrees from Columbia University in the area of social and organizational psychology. He received a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Brooklyn College in 1981. He frequently presents at conferences and associations and has published numerous articles and two books on program and project management, Project Management Success Stories: Lessons of Project Leaders (Wiley, 2000) and Shared Voyage: Learning and Unlearning from Remarkable Projects (NASA History Division, 2005).
• Edward Rogers is the knowledge management architect at Goddard Space Flight Center. He received a PhD from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations focusing on the role of cooperation in high-tech firms. In the early 1980s he performed five years of international relief work in Southern Lebanon. Prior to returning to academic work at Cornell, Dr. Rogers operated a private consulting practice focused on knowledge workers and intelligent enterprise. His research and publications apply game theory models to human behavior in organizations. He has consulted with a number of organizations on building conceptual transparency and leveraging collective knowledge. Before joining NASA, he taught strategic management and entrepreneurship at Cornell, Duke, and the University of Alabama in Huntsville.The Office of the Chief Knowledge Officer (OCKO) provides the center with knowledge management services and support, managing intellectual assets, facilitating the application of knowledge, and enhancing Goddard’s development as a learning organization. One of the office’s primary activities is the Road to Mission Success workshop series, which gives upcoming Goddard leaders an integrated perspective on mission success, from procurement and administration to science and mission operations. The office also conducts Knowledge Sharing Workshops, open to everyone on center, which provide discussion forums on relevant topics or recently launched Goddard missions. Both types of workshops make use of case studies, also produced by the OCKO, to enhance participants’ learning. The OCKO’s other main initiative is the Pause & Learn, a facilitated team meeting used to transfer individual lessons about a specific project event. In addition to introducing this practice at Goddard, the OCKO has also partnered with ESMD to spread the practice to Marshall Space Flight Center and Johnson Space Center.
• Raleigh (Brad) B. Perry leads the Science Support Office (SSO) at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. He directs the office in supporting the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) at NASA Headquarters in preparing and implementing announcements of opportunity to solicit new earth and space science missions and instruments. The SSO leads the technical, management, and cost evaluation of proposals and concept study reports and additionally accomplishes independent studies and assessments as directed by SMD. Mr. Perry previously served as the acquisition manager for New Frontiers, Discovery, Explorer, James Webb Space Telescope, and the Pluto-Kuiper Belt Mission. Prior to joining NASA Langley, Mr. Perry worked at NASA Headquarters and at Johnson Space Center, and he also served as an air force pilot. He has published a number of astronomy papers on subjects ranging from novae to solar system objects, and he is an aerospace engineering graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
• For the past six years John E. Decker has served as the deputy associate director (aka deputy program manager) for the James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST) project at Goddard Space Flight Center. During that time, the project has completed Phases A and B (formulation) and is on the verge of transitioning into Phase C (implementation). Also during that time, all the major contracts for the project have been awarded, international partnerships and contributions have been established, integration and test facilities have been selected, enabling technologies have been matured, and the production of long-lead flight hardware and software items is now well under way. The planned JWST launch date is June 2013.Prior to his current assignment, Mr. Decker served as the deputy program manager/technical for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) project, and before that he served for several years as the head of the Mechanical Systems Analysis and Simulation Branch within the Applied Engineering and Technology Directorate at Goddard. Before becoming a Branch head, Mr. Decker served for more than ten years as the lead mechanical systems and as the flight systems engineer for the HST project, supporting the HST deployment mission in April 1990 as well as four subsequent HST servicing missions.

Abstracts

• Paul Graf, Aerospace Solutions, LLC, addressed howin spite of the lessons of the pastPI-led missions, like most space missions, typically struggle. PI-led missions have an additional potential handicap versus other flight projects in that mission development techniques that have proven successful are frequently counterintuitive to those who are charged with leading them: the PIs. How can this be? The PI, typically a dedicated and very capable individual who has been successful in a research setting, is responsible for defining the mission’s science goals and implementation concepts. A useful approach for a new PI is to understand and acknowledge some of the fundamental differences between research and flight projects and how these differences affect strategies for success. Some differences that were examined are team size and structure and the use of engineering reductionism. To improve the odds of mission success, understanding the techniques and especially the motivations of systems engineering and how they uniquely apply to flight projects is essential.
• Available ResourcesPolicy Guidelines and Directives
  Ed Hoffman, Academy Director, spoke about how NASA’s policy guidelines and directives have been developed to ensure that all NASA space flight projects follow a consistent, disciplined approach through all phases of the life cycle. APPEL offers support to help guide project teams and their individual members through these processes, including training, expert practitioner consultations, team-building workshops, coaching, mentoring, and knowledge sharing.
• Case StudiesLessons Learned from Prior Missions
  Ed Rogers, Goddard Space Flight Center, showed how Goddard has implemented a system for learning from missions via the use of interactive case studies. He walked through how other NASA Centers and organizations can get more value and learn more from their experiences with an effective case methodology. He also shared a few short examples of interactive cases.
• PI Missions Study Assessment Summary
  Brad Perry, Langley Research Center, discussed how Lessons Learned have been identified from a comprehensive review of the technical, management, and cost evaluation results of competitively selected proposals over a ten-year period. He identified six common areas of major weakness, including technical design margins, cost issues, instrument implementation, complex operations, systems engineering, and management. Lessons Learned can reduce the learning curve for new proposal teams and provide beneficial insight for success throughout the mission development and implementation phases.
• Technology Readiness
  John Decker, Goddard Space Flight Center, explained how addressing technology readiness is a critical aspect of getting started on any NASA program. At the inception of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) program back in the mid- to late-1990s, NASA adopted a strategy of making significant, early investments in JWST enabling technology development efforts, with the goal of ensuring that all JWST enabling technologies would reach a maturity level of Technology Readiness Level 6 (TRL-6) before the transition to Phase C, which is the implementation phase for the mission. This strategy of aggressive, early investment in technology development was based upon lessons learned from other NASA programs that carried significant technology development risks (and therefore significant cost and schedule risks) into Phase C. The fruit of those JWST technology development efforts was the successful Technology Non-Advocate Review in January 2007, during which the JWST program team demonstrated that all the required enabling technologies were at the necessary level of maturity more that a year before the transition to Phase C.

Presentations

• SMD Cost/Schedule Performance Study (Summary Overview) [R. Brad Perry] (PDF)
• James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): Technology Discussion for APPEL Forum (John Decker) (PDF)

Speakers

• Charles (Chuck) Gay has served NASA in senior management positions for over seven years. He is currently the Deputy Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate. He was previously Deputy Director of the Office of System Safety and Mission Assurance at Goddard Space Flight Center. He also served as Deputy Director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters, where he was responsible for programmatic development and implementation of NASA’s solar physics and geospace science program. In 2005, he served as the Deputy Director of the newly formed Earth Sun System Division where he was responsible for the development and operations of over 50 spacecraft, spanning multiple NASA Centers, agencies, industry teams, and international partners. Through his leadership, NASA’s Earth science and solar/geospace science spacecraft development programs were integrated into a single division.In addition to his experience at NASA, Mr. Gay has over 20 years of experience in the aerospace industry. He served as Vice President of a division of Litton Advanced Systems, managing a space systems business. He also worked at Martin Marietta, Lockheed Martin, and Fairchild Space Company. He has experience with many successful NASA flight programs including TDRS, Magellan, TOPEX, Terra, and EO-1 in engineering and program management positions. Mr. Gay has received the NASA Public Service medal, a Silver Snoopy award, and a Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Service. Mr. Gay received a B.S. in Civil Engineering and an M.S. in Structural Engineering from the University of Maryland.
• James Garvin is the chief scientist for Goddard Space Flight Center and provides strategic advice on the scientific priorities and directions for the center to its senior management, as well as for the Agency. As a veteran Earth and planetary scientist within NASA in a career that has spanned more than twenty years, Dr. Garvin brings his experience with interdisciplinary science and instrumentation in helping to direct the scientific trajectory of the center. He previously served as the NASA Chief Scientist, advising three separate Administrators. In addition, Dr. Garvin served as the chief scientist for Mars exploration from 2000 until 2004 and spearheaded the development of the scientific strategy that led NASA to select such missions as the Mars Exploration Rovers, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Phoenix polar lander, and the Mars Science Laboratory. He received two NASA Outstanding Leadership Medals for his work with the science behind the Mars Exploration Program. Dr. Garvin earned his PhD in the geological sciences from Brown University in 1984 under the mentorship of Professors J. W. Head and T. A. Mutch. He also received an MS from Stanford University in computer sciences and a second MS from Brown in geology. He graduated with highest honors from Brown University in 1978 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 2005, he was elected a Trustee of Brown University and was the 2005 William Rogers award recipient (Brown University) for his contributions to society.

Presentations

• NASA SMD Priorities, Principles, Programs (Charles Gay) (PDF)
• Discovery-Driven Science: Rule or Rarity? (James Garvin) (PDF)