New JPL Workers Shed Training Wheels for Rocket Launch

Feature: 2010-408 Dec. 6, 2010

New JPL Workers Shed Training Wheels for Rocket Launch

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-408&cid=release_2010-408

Less than three years after obtaining college degrees, a group of early-career
employees at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., can now add
"rocket launch" to their resumes.

Recent graduates who work for JPL launched a sounding rocket 120 kilometers
(75 miles) above Earth's surface on Monday, Dec. 6. The rocket flew from the U.S.
Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, with four cameras on board.

The cameras recorded real-time ground imagery throughout the flight, both after
launch as the rocket climbed beyond the atmosphere, and during its descent back
to White Sands. Those data will be compared with existing maps to develop
terrain-modeling algorithms. This project will improve precision landing for future
missions to Mars and other locations.

Members of the Phaeton group, a rapid-training program for early career hires at
JPL, submitted a proposal to NASA's Hands-on-Project Experience. The program,
created by NASA in November 2008, aims to give rising engineers, scientists and
others the opportunity to move a small mission from concept to launch to post-
flight analysis. In May 2009, the Phaeton group was selected to move forward with
their proposed project, called Terrain Relative Navigation and Employee
Development, which they refer to as Trained.

"The best thing about the Phaeton program is taking a project from the idea to
launch and taking ownership of the decisions," said Elvis Merida, the Trained
mission assurance manager. "I'm always making a conscious effort to educate
myself, which is why I applied for the Phaeton program." Merida, who received a
bachelor's and master's degree from California State University, Northridge, is
currently working toward a second master's degree, in electrical engineering, from
California State University, Los Angeles.

The Phaeton program consists of about 40 early career hires at JPL working on
three small-payload projects with a life cycle of about two to three years. Each
team member is matched with an experienced JPL mentor to guide in technical and
leadership development skills.

"The program was designed for early-career hires, but I'm actually learning from
it," said Johnny Kwok, who oversees the grads as Phaeton program manager at JPL. "Through their eyes, I'm learning about what they're experiencing, and they have the opportunity to touch all the pieces of the life development process."

With the Dec. 6 launch, the Trained program participants have completed this
portion of the early-career hire experience and will move on to other career
opportunities at JPL. When asked if he feels a sense of relief from completing such
an important and demanding project, Merida said, "I don't feel relief. I feel as
though I'm just beginning."

More information about the Trained project is online at:
http://phaeton.jpl.nasa.gov/external/projects/terrain.cfm .

JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

-end-

Priscilla Vega 818-354-1357
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
priscilla.r.vega@jpl.nasa.gov

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