Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, May 9, 2005 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium
(Rescheduled from February 28.)

Jim Watzin

"The Robotic Lunar Exploration (RLE) Program"

ABSTRACT -- This presentation will be a snapshot in time of the new NASA Robotic Lunar Exploration Program (RLE) led by GSFC. RLE is critical to the new NASA Exploration Program and its vision to return humans to the moon by 2020, followed by a human mission to Mars before 2030. The first step in RLE is LRO, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, for which a preliminary design review will be held in June, 2005. The instruments for the LRO were finalized in December. Mr. Watzin will be discussing specifics of LRO and future aspects of the RLE Program, such as the subsequent Lunar Lander.

SPEAKER -- Mr. Watzin is currently the RLE Program Manager at GSFC. In the past, Mr. Watzin served as project manager on many successful science and engineering missions at GSFC. These included the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP), ICESat, DSCOVR, and the GSFC SMEX Project. With SMEX, he led the development efforts of the TRACE and WIRE mission teams and also completed the prototyping of SMEX*Lite, an advanced technology, next generation spacecraft.

Mr. Watzin has been employed by NASA since 1980 and has a background in Attitude Control and Systems Engineering. He is the author of 23 technical papers originating from his work at GSFC. He earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of South Carolina and a MS in Dynamics and Control from the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Purdue University prior to his career at NASA.