JPL Portfolio

After graduating from Harvard University, I began working as an electrical engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the world’s premiere institution for developing unmanned probes for exploring other worlds. Because of its history of being at the cutting edge of aerospace innovation, JPL was the perfect place to hone my research and development skill set. During my two and a half years at JPL, I had the opportunity to work on three R&D projects which enabled me to develop my skills not just as an engineer but as a researcher as well.

 

Spacecraft Atmosphere Monitor (S.A.M.)

s.a.m._portable_config_cropped.jpg
fm_integration_2.jpg
fm_integration_1.jpg

Summary of the Project:

  • S.A.M. is a miniaturized Gas Chromatograph/Mass Spectrometer instrument that was sent to the International Space Station on July 25, 2019 aboard SpaceX CRS-18.

    • This was the first time a Dragon capsule was reused for a third flight.

  • On-station, the S.A.M. instrument will continuously monitor the major atmospheric constituents -- oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, methane, and humidity -- as well as trace organic volatiles in the cabin air daily.

  • S.A.M.’s compact design allows for it to perform instrument science operations inside the space station’s EXPRESS Racks, as well as allowing it to be easily deployed by the astronauts throughout the various nodes of the space station to monitor different astronaut environments and activities, such as exercise and sleep.

  • This instrument was developed in order to validate modern crew health technologies aboard the International Space Station before sending astronauts on a series of Artemis expeditions to orbit and land on the Moon.

  • The S.A.M. electronics are designed to accommodate aggressive packaging requirements while meeting the demands to allow for QITMS operation with minimal power consumption, touchscreen control, WiFi communication, vacuum preservation, fault detection, and full instrument autonomy.

My Contributions:

I was assigned to work on this project starting in February of 2017.  At this point, the instrument was still in prototype/development phase.  The S.A.M. team was small, so I needed to fulfill a variety of responsibilities - up until the day of delivery - including:

  • Software development (Python and Javascript) of tools for interfacing with and manual testing of the electronics modules, as well as the integrated prototype SAM unit.

  • Development of lab-use prototype automation software.

  • Schematic capture of new and revised electronics designs.

  • Design and development of the VHCE Mezzanine board -- a capacitor energy bank and power converter board for critical fail-safe systems.

  • Responsible for redesign and refinement of the MSRFA board -- the main board for power conversion and distribution to all other electronics modules, driving of various QITMS loads, as well as hosting the main instrument CPU/FPGA.

  • Assisted research scientists with operation and debugging of the bench-top prototype integrated instrument.

  • Documentation for assembly and testing procedures for electronics.

  • Conducting systematic functional testing of flight electronics.

  • Characterizing electronics to verify fulfillment of electronics subsystem requirements.

  • Working with I&T and Mechanical leads in flight instrument packaging and integration.

Silicon Carbide Magnetometer (SiCMag)

sicmag_1.jpg
 
sicmag_pcb1.jpg

Summary of the Project:

  • The Silicon Carbide Magnetometer (SiCMag) is a next-generation solid-state magnetometer that leverages quantum centers—i.e. atomic scale defects—intrinsic to a SiC semiconductor to sense the magnetic fields of planetary bodies.

  • If shown to be as sensitive as optically pumped atomic gas and fluxgate magnetometers, SiCMag could be the future instrument of choice since it is significantly less complex and smaller than previous designs and thus is well suited for implementation on nano- or pico-satellites where swarms or a constellations of very small research spacecraft could be deployed.

  • The entire instrument is composed of a SiC diode enclosed by three very small sets of orthogonal Helmholtz coils, a high-gain current amplifier, a few analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters, and a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The coil system is used to modulate the ambient magnetic field in each dimension with a different frequency that is sensed by the diode. The current from the diode is amplified, conditioned and then sampled prior to being digitally demodulated in the FPGA for extraction of the three frequency-division multiplexed vectorized current components.

My Contributions:

I was assigned to work on this project starting in the summer of 2018.  At this point, the instrument was just a concept.  I was brought in as the lead electrical engineer to help develop the flight-like demonstration prototype of the instrument. As the lead, my responsibilities included:

  • Writing requirements based on scientific needs.

  • Electronics design, planning, and schematic capture.

  • Architected the design to allow for lots of lab configurability.

  • Part choices are COTS, but have flight equivalent available.

  • Simulation of critical circuits in LTspice.

  • Design and development of PCB layouts, electrical harnesses, and mechanical mounting interfaces.

  • Documentation for assembly and testing procedures for electronics.

  • Assembly and testing of electronics prototypes.

  • Creating the FPGA’s VHDL framework.

Deep Space Optical Communications – Photon Counting Camera (PCC)

 
dsoc_pcc.png
 

Summary of the Project:

  • The DSOC instrument aboard NASA's Psyche mission utilizes photons to transmit more data in a given amount of time. The DSOC goal is to increase spacecraft communications performance and efficiency by 10 to 100 times over conventional RF means, without increasing the mission burden in mass, volume, power and/or spectrum.

  • DSOC architecture is based on transmitting a laser beacon from Earth to assist line­-of-­sight stabilization to make possible the pointing back of a downlink laser beam.

  • The PCC subsystem is comprised of an Asynchronous GmAPD detector, electronics, & enclosure and is responsible in the instrument for:

    • Uplink beacon acquisition and tracking

    • Downlink location (point-ahead calculation)

    • Receive modulated beacon (data uplink)

My Contributions:

I was assigned to work on this project starting in the summer of 2018.  At this point, the instrument was in Phase B of development.  I was brought in as the subsystem technical manager on the JPL side, in order to manage a subcontractor who was developing the PCC for JPL. As the lead, my responsibilities included:

  • Planning resources and scheduling items in order to keep the project on schedule and on cost.

  • Managed a team of 20 on a $10Million contract.

  • Led weekly tag-up status meetings with our subcontractor.

  • Communicated with other DSOC project leads in order to ensure design compatibility with the rest of the instrument.

  • Delivered monthly updates to JPL and our NASA sponsors.

  • Responsible for writing and approving Interface Control Documents, approving design drawings, negotiating requirements, tracking risks, approving analyses, documenting design discrepancies, developing test plans, and tracking deliverables.

  • Scheduling and leading design reviews with subject matter experts.