Archive for the ‘SEB’ category

Looking for Help on FOS

June 14, 2007

We are looking for help for the Flight Operations Subsystem team.

The position is posted internally now, but will be external any time. The ideal person would have experience with control center systems, ideally building one, and be experienced in working with developer, astronomer and system engineering communities here and at Goddard. This is work that Carl Biagetti is leading, and Carey Myers is starting to work on.

To quote me:

The JWST Flight Operations Subsystem Engineer will be responsible for refining the FOS operations concept, defining systems requirements, interfaces and architecture as well as supporting the development of FOS elements and their integration with the JWST Science and Operations Center. The FOS Systems Engineer will work under the direction of the STScI FOS Systems Engineering Lead as a member of a concurrent engineering team responsible for the FOS Ground System. This position will require interaction with JWST science, operations and development staff, the JWST NASA GSFC project, JWST contractors and representatives of other missions to achieve the work objectives.

Knowledge of the state of the art in satellite control center systems is required. This includes experience with the following: one or more NASA GSFC developed systems such as TPOCC, ITOS, ASSIST, HST CCS; one or more commercial systems such as EPOCH, ECLIPSE or OS/COMET; ground station and communications satellite interfaces; satellite command procedures languages; satellite control center operations procedures.

If you are somebody like that, or know somebody like that, I want to talk to you, even if you aren’t interested in doing this kind of work yourself. (For one thing, I can use help on the interview team!)

This is new stuff for us, so it’s a challenging, exciting opportunity.

tc>

It’s not what the software does, it’s what the user does.

May 30, 2007

hugh macleod at Gaping Void does these great little cartoons, “drawn on the back of business cards.”   First, that’s a cool idea.  It’s a great size, and it lets you express just one idea in a little tiny format with which people are familiar.

This cartoon in particular says something very insightful, both about PowerPoint and about software in general.  I agree with the sentiment, though I have a quibble.

The problem Tufte and others point out is not that PowerPoint is abused, it is that the particular cognitive style of PowerPoint encourages lazy thinking, and poor communication.

When we’re building software, in my view, we should be concerned about the correctness of algorithms, using appropriate design patterns, and building designs that are sustainable and maintainable.  It is also essential that we build systems that users readily understand, and that encourage users to build correct results.

Because technology matters, but people matter most.

tc>

Moving to System Engineering

April 19, 2007

It’s official, I’m moving over to lead the System Engineering Branch.

The last three years, as I’ve done less development work and more management, I’ve also been drifting in the direction of focusing on interfaces and architectures. I’ve also been working with Melissa on metrics, and I have a very good working relationship with her. Leading SEB will let me keep doing both of those things, and spend some time looking at the “big picture” as we get into more details on the JWST systems, and the interfaces between systems.

A lot of the cross-system integration will be Mark Abernathy’s baliwick, as the system integration manager and “middle part” Chief Engineer. Most of the work I was doing while in SAS was work for Mark, so I’ll still be doing some of that work, and helping Melissa manage some of it.

So this should be interesting. :-)


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