Tracy Neilson:
CLASS OF 1983
Pasadena High SchoolClass of 1983
Pasadena, CA
Tracy's Story
Workplace
Working for NASA at the Jet Proplusion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena as an Engineer. I started working on the Galileo mission to Jupiter, while I was working on my mechanical engineering bachelorÃs degree at Cal Poly Pomona. For the next eight years, I worked on the Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem autonomous fault protection and the Probe Relay/Jupiter Orbit Insertion sequence design. The highlight of the mission for me was when the orbiter captured the transmitted signal from the probe entering Jupiter's atmosphere at 106,000 mph.
After Galileo, I joined Deep Space 1, designing the fault protection system and launch algorithms. DS1 was a technology mission to flig...Expand for more
ht-test new technologies such as ion propulsion and autonomous navigation in deep space. During the extended mission, the spacecraft took images of the comet Borrelly from just 2000 miles away.
For four years, I worked on the Mars Exploration Rovers that landed in January 2004. My primary role was to design the fault protection system, but I also helped design the rover wake-up and shutdown algorithms and the behavior architecture. After practicing landing hundreds of times in the test beds, those first pictures of the surface of Mars without walls were a sight I'll never forget!
Currently working on the next Mars rover, called Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), to launch in 2009.
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