Home

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM
And Schneebaum Award Presentation Ceremony

Monday, May 24, 2009 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

photo of Frank Cepollina

Speaker and Schneebaum Award Recipient:
Frank Cepollina

"The Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Legacy and the Future of Satellite Servicing"

ABSTRACT -- In the course of his talk, Mr. Frank Cepollina will examine the Hubble Space Telescope's servicing legacy and investigate what engineering challenges must be overcome to achieve modern satellite servicing goals. Along the way, he will delve into the significance and implications of Satellite Servicing and illuminate the three distinct phases that have accompanied its development: its past and its legacy, its present with its challenges, and the path that can be charted for its future. As he surveys current trends of thought about servicing, he will explore how today's specific demands and decisions determine the course of future opportunities and occasions for growth. Mr. Cepollina will also demonstrate how Hubble's rich legacy – with its leadership in engineering, spirit of innovation, and hunger for cutting-edge technology – offers lessons that are relevant to today's engineering challenges and implementable for future missions' successes.

SPEAKER -- Mr. Frank "Cepi" Cepollina serves as Deputy Associate Director for the Space Servicing Capabilities Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Known as the "Father of On-Orbit Servicing," Mr. Cepollina's exceptional leadership has generated many of the groundbreaking concepts, designs and procedures that have kept the Hubble Space Telescope at the cutting edge of technology throughout its long lifespan. Always an innovator, he established the architecture for NASA's first serviceable Multi-Mission Modular Spacecraft, which indelibly improved the way that space missions are conceptualized and executed. In addition to leading the Satellite Servicing Project and the Solar Maximum Repair Mission – NASA's first on-orbit repair mission – he also headed the historic 1993 effort that corrected Hubble's blurred vision. As the Deputy Associate Director of the Hubble Space Telescope Development Project, Mr. Cepollina and his team completed three more servicing and upgrading missions to Hubble in 1997, 1999, and 2002, and demonstrated new Hubble technology aboard STS-95 ("the John Glenn Mission") in 1998. His last Hubble servicing mission, STS-125, was successfully completed in May 2009.

Mr. Cepollina graduated from University of Santa Clara in 1959 with a B.S. in mechanical engineering. In recognition of his sustained, superior accomplishments in managing NASA programs, in 2000 the President of the United States conferred upon him the rank of Meritorious Executive in Senior Executive Service. In 2003, Mr. Cepollina was inducted to the exclusive National Inventors Hall of Fame for his visionary work in modular spacecraft design and satellite servicing. Spin-offs from his work have led to advances in computer chip technology, manufacturing instruments, and breast-cancer detection.

On May 24, 2010, Mr. Cepollina will receive the Moe I. Schneebaum Award, Goddard's highest engineering award.




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