Music
Beth: My name is Beth
Weinstein, and I am an I&T,
integration and test engineer. Lisa: My name is Lisa Bartusek and I
am the GPM Deputy Mission Systems Engineer. Carlton: My name is
Carlton Peters, I'm an associate branch head here at the Goddard Space Flight Center
in the thermal engineering branch. I also serve as the GPM
thermal project development lead. We basically
are a part of the larger GPM I&T team, which consists of
electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical
technicians, mechanical technicians, thermal technicians.
Lisa: Satellites are very complex systems, so the part of it
about breaking them down into all the little pieces tends to be fairly
easy, and I find the hard part to be putting all the pieces back together.
Carlton: It takes the entire team and everybody to be focused
on one mission. A lot of times people feel like they
can take the entire burden on themselves, but it's good to communicate
amongst everyone and make sure everybody's on the same page, moving forward, and we,
I think, are getting there on GPM. Lisa: We really want to make sure it
works, we don't want to waste the taxpayer dollars, and so we develop tests
that will put it through its paces. Carlton: We can't go get the spacecraft, bring it
back, fix it, and send it back out there. It just isn't that simple.
And you'd rather solve a small issue now rather than
have it propagate and become a bigger issue for you later.
Beth: I'm also a test director, so we split our work
up into shifts and then during the shift, I'm the one in charge of
all the work that's going on the spacecraft that day. And if someone needs
something, if they're missing some kind of resource, whether that's personnel or physical
resource, then it would be my job to make sure that they get what they need to do their job.
Actually my background is in computer science,
it was computer science focused, but definitely a focus on an understanding of Earth science
and how we viewed the Earth from afar and what we could do with that data.
Carlton: And I took a course in thermodynamics, and I mean I fell in love with
it right away. I knew right away that was the way I was going to go in
engineering. I was going to go towards thermal engineering.
Lisa: I was always very interested in math, and I didn't think it was quite practical
to become a mathematician, I'm more practically-minded. So I decided to
go into engineering, and the thing that really attracts me about it is that
I like to do puzzles and I like logic so
I think being in engineering I'm able to indulge myself in those
passions everyday. Carlton: It's being flexible is probably one of the
hardest and best things to be during I&T
because you just prepare for some of the things that happen.
Beth: The reason why it's important and why we test and do all this is not only to launch it and
make sure that our time was used well, that we don't have something that fails once it gets into
up there, but that people are actually waiting for this data.
Music, rain falling
Music