Systems engineering plays a critical role in space-mission development and is the right hand of the PI and the PM. He or she provides the technical expertise for the design, integration, and verification of the platform and supporting systems to meet the mission’s objectives in an affordable manner, and within an acceptable level of risk. […]
John Mather will discuss the challenges of organizing and running two teams: the COBE science team and the James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST) science team. COBE’s three instruments presented unique challenges. Each instrument had its own principal investigator (PI), so there were different executive styles, which will be compared. Also, the Science Working Group […]
After completing his PhD at Cornell University in 1985, Robert Pfaff joined the Goddard Space Flight Center, where is presently a space scientist in the Space Weather Laboratory in the Heliophysics Division. With more than twenty-five years of experience working with experimental electric field research at Goddard, he leads a team involved in all aspects […]
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 joined the NASA Office of Space Science as a senior scientist in 2000. He later served as theme […]
The Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WIRE) was a small satellite carrying a cryogenically cooled infrared telescope designed to study starburst galaxies—vast clouds of molecular gas cradling the sites of newborn stars. Developed under NASA’s Small Explorer Program, WIRE was intended to have a four-month primary mission. WIRE was launched on a three-stage Pegasus XL vehicle released […]
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 planned; pointing systems underperform; interactions among the payload, spacecraft, and the launch vehicle create vibration loads that threaten the integrity of the observatory; and looming […]
Project Manager The multitude of roles played by the project manager (PM)—ranging from daily technical management to project psychiatrist—will be discussed. The criticality and complexity of the relationships between the PI and PM, PM and the mission systems engineer, and PM to NASA will be discussed. The process of building the team’s infrastructure in the […]
James L. Burch is vice president of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute. He received his BS in physics in 1964 from St. Mary’s University of Texas and his PhD in space science from Rice University in 1968. He was principal investigator for the Dynamics Explorer 1 high-altitude plasma instrument, the […]
The Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) mission was selected in 1997 and launched in 2003, performing the first extragalactic wide-area imaging and spectroscopic surveys in the ultraviolet. Designed to map the history of star formation over 80 percent of the history of the universe, GALEX has changed our understanding of where and when stars form in […]
