Systems Engineering Seminar

DSCOVR: Refurbishing a Spacecraft After a Decade of Storage

Presented by:
Gary Meadows, Code 599

Tuesday, August 9, 2016, 1:00 pm
Building 3 Auditorium

Abstract:

Conceived by Al Gore in 1998 and built by GSFC in record time, the Triana mission was abruptly canceled and placed into storage in 2001. Nearly a decade later, it was resurrected with a new owner (NOAA), a new mission (space weather monitoring and prediction), a new launch vehicle (SpaceX Falcon-9), and a new name: Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR). Gary Meadows, Mission Systems Engineer for the project, will discuss challenges and obstacles that were overcome by the DSCOVR team and how several of the lessons from the experience are relevant to Goddard missions.

Biography:

Gary Meadows was the Mission Systems Engineer for the DSCOVR Mission. His responsibilities included ensuring that the elements of the Observatory satisfied the mission requirements and providing direction to the DSCOVR technical team.

Gary has 20 years of experience in the aerospace field starting with integration & test and launch campaigns for FUSE, EO-1, and MAP. He served as spacecraft systems engineer on the GPM project from Phase A through integration and has held lead electrical systems engineer positions for commercial customers as a contractor.

Prior to entering the aerospace field, Gary specialized in process automation and participated in the engineering and commissioning of numerous steel and aluminum mill installations. Gary holds a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Illinois.