Hubble Blog Entry #2: Pieces of the Puzzle

Well, it’s been about 2 months since my last entry and a whole lot of stuff has gone on here at Goddard. Since I last wrote, the crew of STS-124 successfully completed their mission and returned to earth. Translation: we’re up next! The team here at Goddard couldn’t be more excited—just last week, we shipped 3 of our 4 carriers (those are the large building blocks that make up the payload for STS-125) to Kennedy Space Center and have begun the process of integrating our hardware to the shuttle’s payload bay.


It’s really hard to believe how much time, effort, and energy goes into preparing for a launch. There are so many people that need to work together in order to make things “go”; from the folks who design the parts to those who run the final checkouts, everyone’s role is important to the success of the mission and program in general. I was thinking about this the other day—in my day-to-day life here at Goddard, I interact with upwards of 20-30 people beyond a casual “hello” in the hallway….and that’s just the folks working on one sub-system! When you propagate that number over a vehicle the size of the space shuttle that contains thousands of subsystems, you really get an appreciation for just how big this all really is.

As the launch gets closer, this team has really come together to meet all of our goals. I won’t lie—the hours and days are getting long for all of us right now; but we’re coming down the home stretch. Systems are coming together, final rounds of testing are being completed, and piece by piece, our hardware is coming to the end of its preparatory journey. Over the last two and a half years working here at Goddard, I’ve gotten to see several of these designs go from initial concepts on a meeting room whiteboard to a physical systems that I’ve gotten to help build and test. To see everything come full circle like this has been absolutely incredible.

Lately, my part of the “circle” has been to support the last of our testing efforts….a process we affectionately refer to as “shake and bake”. Space is a pretty unforgiving place – the launch/landing loads and temperatures experienced once on orbit are far greater than those you’d see in your day-to-day life here on Earth. Because of this, we need to perform a variety of tests in order to qualify the hardware for flight. We develop plans—similar to a lab report you’d write at school—outlining the test we’d like to perform, why we’d like to perform it, and what we expect to happen. From there, we shake, pull, push, heat, and cool the system until we’re certain that it will behave the way that we expect it to. This often results in getting to perform some pretty neat, hands-on activities in order to get the measurements that we need. For me, this is probably one of the most exciting parts of my job.

So what’s up next? After I finish my work here in Maryland, I’ll be headed down to Kennedy Space Center to help with payload integration work. NASA’s already started an official web site documenting our team’s efforts at the Cape. You can check it out here: http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=180

Until next time (from Florida!)….

Dream BIG!
Meg

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In response to Jennie from the CLC of St. Louis…

My "home" center is the Buehler Challenger & Science Center in Paramus, NJ. I first attended a program there as a junior girl scout back in 1996 when my troop did an overnight camp-in. Needless to say, I was hooked! I lobbied for my middle school to take another trip, which we did when I was in 8th grade (1998). From there, I was actually fortunate enough to become a volunteer with the center as a Junior Commander/Camp Counselor for a few years in high school. While leaving NJ for college and a busy work schedule have prevented me from staying as involved as I once was, I often find myself calling upon my experiences—that initial spark, if you will—that I got from the Center in my day-to-day work. My experiences definitely helped me to solidify and stick with my ultimate career choice, and I'm forever thankful for that!