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 […]
Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD), Principal Investigator Richard Eastes, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Fla. GOLD will increase our understanding of the temperature and composition in the ionosphere; and provide understanding of the global scale response of the Earth’s thermosphere and ionosphere. To learn more, please visit: http://appel.nasa.gov/knowledge-sharing/pi-team-masters-forums/
The primary responsibility of the Explorer Program Office is to ensure Explorer missions are successful in achieving their science objectives. We do this by working with the PI and the project team to manage the cost, schedule, and technical elements of the project and by guiding them through the various processes that make up the […]
Lynn M. Kistler is the principal investigator for the ion mass spectrum analyzer for the SCOPE mission. She is a professor in the department of physics and the Space Science Center at the University of New Hampshire. Her research focuses on using composition measurements as a tool for understanding the dynamics of the magnetosphere and […]
Critical resources also include operational timeline and relationships (teaming). Timeline here differs from development schedule although considerations of adequate timeline for post-launch activities have design and implementation trade-space implications. Team building includes many items, such as establishing effective communication paths and lines of authority, matching skills to tasks, delegating appropriately, and providing leadership. A common […]
John Kohl is a senior astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. He is the principal investigator for the Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer (UVCS) on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), and he was the principal investigator for the Ultraviolet Coronal Spectrometer on Spartan 201, a shuttle-deployed and -retrieved satellite that carried out four successful two-day flights. […]
