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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, November 15, 2010 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

photo of Mike Weiss
Mike Weiss

Michael Weiss and Jesse Leitner

"Investigating the Australian Balloon Mishap – Findings and Lessons"

ABSTRACT -- Michael Weiss (GSFC Code 455) recently served as Chairman of the Agency's Mishap Investigation Board charged with collecting and reviewing evidence, determining causes, and recommending safety improvements regarding the failure of the Nuclear Compton Telescope scientific balloon payload launch attempt on April 28, 2010 in Alice Springs, Australia. Under his leadership, the Board determined the causes of the mishap and recommended a number of activities that will protect the public and improve the reliability of balloon operations. During this presentation, he and Jesse Leitner (GSFC Code 300) will discuss NASA's mishap investigation process and the findings and lessons learned.

SPEAKER -- Michael Weiss is currently the Program Manager, Exploration Systems Projects Office, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Goddard) in Greenbelt, Maryland. He recently served as Chairman of the Agency's Mishap Investigation Board charged with collecting and reviewing evidence, determining causes, and recommending safety improvements regarding the failure of the Nuclear Compton Telescope scientific balloon payload launch attempt on April 28, 2010 in Alice Springs, Australia.

From 1998 to 2009, Mr. Weiss served as the Deputy Program Manager of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Program, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, leading the technical development of all program activities and operations as well as resultant advanced studies. He was also the Director of Systems Development for the first two Hubble servicing missions in 1993 and 1997, responsible for developing the mission design, defining all hardware, and managing the overall systems engineering activities to support these highly complex and ground breaking missions. Under his technical leadership, the Hubble Space Telescope Program became one of the world's premiere observatories, producing some of the most stunning and well-known images of the universe which, in turn, have led to trail blazing scientific discoveries and theories. His enthusiastic contributions to outreach activities supporting HST and related space exploration efforts have led to his appearances on NOVA, The Discovery Channel, and the BBC as well as broadcasts on National Public Radio.

Mr. Weiss received his B.S. and M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland at College Park in 1978 and 1983, respectively.

An avid open water diver, he has spent over 200 hours in NASA's Neutral Buoyancy tanks training the flight crews. As an accomplished underwater photographer, his photographs are used by numerous organizations to document coral conditions. Mr. Weiss lives in Maryland with his wife Dina and their sons Kevin and Brian.

Jesse Leitner holds a Ph D in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech in the area of Flight Mechanics and Control, an MS in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech as well, and a BS in Aerospace Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. He is currently the Chief Safety and Mission Assurance Engineer for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, responsible for the technical direction for NASA GSFC's Directorate for Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA). In this role, he develops policies and procedures to ensure technical excellence and engineering integrity for SMA practices across GSFC; coordinates, recommends solutions for, and reports on problems and issues across the Center; and facilitates technical coordination for activities in engineering, SMA, and projects and programs at GSFC. Previously, he was the Chief Engineer for the Mission Engineering and Systems Analysis Division at NASA GSFC, responsible for initiating, leading, and directing technical activities focused on improving systems engineering, flight dynamics, propulsion systems, guidance, navigation, and attitude control, as well as developing new concepts and approaches to meet current and future engineering requirements of the Division. Prior to that, he served as NASA GSFC's lead engineer for Distributed Space Systems, responsible for end-to-end systems engineering and technology development for distributed spacecraft missions. This included serving as the manager for the Revolutionary Spacecraft Systems Project in NASA's Code R, coordinating all cross-cutting technology work in NASA in the areas of distributed spacecraft, micro-spacecraft technology, and space environments and effects. He has served on a wide range of review boards, panels, and red teams to assess mission readiness for NASA and DoD space missions. He recently served as the common element engineering technical authority for the LRO/LCROSS/Atlas (lunar reconnaissance orbiter/lunar crater observation and sensing spacecraft) integrated system and he serves on the standing review boards for the LADEE mission and the MMS (magnetospheric multi-scale) mission. He also runs or serves on a number of independent review teams, such as the LADEE instrument IIRT, AFRL's Angels program guidance, navigation, and control IRT, and MMS GN&C IRT, and he has served as a board-member on the NOAA N-prime IRT and the LRO mission standing review board until the associated launches. Prior to joining NASA Goddard at the beginning of 2000, he was a group leader for Space Flight Dynamics and Control at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Space Vehicles Directorate in Albuquerque. He served for 12 years on the AIAA GN&C Technical Committee, he has been AIAA director on the American Automatic Control Council, he was the Technical Program Chairman for the 2002 AIAA GN&C Conference and the General Chairman for the 2007 AIAA GN&C Conference. He was the Vice Chairman and subsequently Chairman of the first and second International Symposia on Formation Flying Missions and Technologies. He is a lifetime Associate Fellow of AIAA and he served as an Associate Editor for the AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics for five years. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the NASA Exceptional Service Medal in 2003.




Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov