GD AIS

General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems – Integrated Space Systems

Ground Software Engineer

Developing ground software for the operation, automation, and testing of government and commercial satellite spacecraft.

Gilbert, AZ

Summer 2005 to 2014

Reference: Tom Arnold

Awards

Summer 2007 Certificate of Excellence – “For outstanding performance and lasting contribution to OrbView5.”
Fall 2005 GD Silver Eagle Award – “For Significant Behavior and Results. An identifiable and measurable accomplishment that results in significant impact on improving financial or business performance for the department or division.”
Fall 2005 Department of the Year, Ground Software – “For excellent performance for GDC4S-SASS. Your attitude and actions exceed expectations and merit our most sincere appreciation.”

Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting Systems

CNOFS
C/NOFS is a military/scientific satellite to attempt to predict when cosmic conditions might be disruptive to communication or navigation systems. I came into this project in the middle of its environmental testing. This means the software and database was already developed and was in a validation/maintanence mode. However, due to its turbulent history, the database for this project was not to the level of readiness that it should have been. My primary contribution to this project was to develop tools to facilitate the analysis, modification, and validation of the database.


OrbView5

OrbView5
OrbView is a commercial satellite for a company called GeoEye. Their plan is to put a telescope into space that is pointed at Earth and allow customers to request hi-res images of locations on Earth as it passes over. You may be familiar with some of the images taken by OrbView5’s little brother, OrbView3, on websites such as Google Maps. I have been heavily involved in the development of OrbView5 in these areas:

  • adding capability to our satellite operations software (AstroRT) to support the command and telemetry processing required by OrbView5
  • developing a test framework for test writers
  • writing subsystem and system level tests
  • supporting other engineerings writing satellite tests
  • development of the operational command and telemetry database and associated tools
  • various performance and usability improvements to AstroRT and supported test tools
  • Popular Science. “How It Works: The Best View From Space Yet”. Apr. 2008.
  • GeoEye on NBC’s Mad Money. Dec. 2007.
  • GeoEye Press Release. “ORBIMAGE Completes Acquisition of Space Imaging; Changes Brand Name to GeoEye”. Jan. 2006.
  • ORBIMAGE Press Release. “ORBIMAGE Selected as NGA’s Second NextView Provider”. Sept. 2004.