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Music

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Music
Beth: My name is Beth

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Weinstein, and I am an I&T,

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integration and test engineer.
Lisa: My name is Lisa Bartusek and I

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am the GPM Deputy Mission Systems Engineer.
Carlton: My name is

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Carlton Peters, I'm an associate branch head here at the Goddard Space Flight Center

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in the thermal engineering branch. I also serve as the GPM

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thermal project development lead. We basically

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are a part of the larger GPM I&T team, which consists of

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electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical

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technicians, mechanical technicians, thermal technicians.

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Lisa: Satellites are very complex systems, so the part of it

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about breaking them down into all the little pieces tends to be fairly

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easy, and I find the hard part to be putting all the pieces back together.

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Carlton: It takes the entire team and everybody to be focused

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on one mission. A lot of times people feel like they

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can take the entire burden on themselves, but it's good to communicate

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amongst everyone and make sure everybody's on the same page, moving forward, and we,

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I think, are getting there on GPM.
Lisa: We really want to make sure it

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works, we don't want to waste the taxpayer dollars, and so we develop tests

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that will put it through its paces.
Carlton: We can't go get the spacecraft, bring it

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back, fix it, and send it back out there. It just isn't that simple.

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And you'd rather solve a small issue now rather than

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have it propagate and become a bigger issue for you later.

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Beth: I'm also a test director, so we split our work

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up into shifts and then during the shift, I'm the one in charge of

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all the work that's going on the spacecraft that day. And if someone needs

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something, if they're missing some kind of resource, whether that's personnel or physical

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resource, then it would be my job to make sure that they get what they need to do their job.

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Actually my background is in computer science,

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it was computer science focused, but definitely a focus on an understanding of Earth science

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and how we viewed the Earth from afar and what we could do with that data.

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Carlton: And I took a course in thermodynamics, and I mean I fell in love with

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it right away. I knew right away that was the way I was going to go in

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engineering. I was going to go towards thermal engineering.

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Lisa: I was always very interested in math, and I didn't think it was quite practical

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to become a mathematician, I'm more practically-minded. So I decided to

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go into engineering, and the thing that really attracts me about it is that

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I like to do puzzles and I like logic so

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I think being in engineering I'm able to indulge myself in those

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passions everyday.
Carlton: It's being flexible is probably one of the

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hardest and best things to be during I&T

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because you just prepare for some of the things that happen.

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Beth: The reason why it's important and why we test and do all this is not only to launch it and

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make sure that our time was used well, that we don't have something that fails once it gets into

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up there, but that people are actually waiting for this data.

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Music, rain falling

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Music

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