Browse Archive
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Ares I-X Upper Stage Simulator
In 2006, a Glenn Research Center team began developing the Ares I-X Upper Stage Simulator. Building a team with the right competencies and skills was the project manager’s primary challenge.
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Redesigning COBE
Forced back to the drawing board after the loss of the Challenger space shuttle, the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) team had to find a new way to get the spacecraft into orbit.
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Launching New Horizons: The RP-1 Tank Decision
Four months before the planned launch of the New Horizons mission to Pluto, the manufacturer of the launch vehicle reported that its fuel tank experienced a failure during testing.
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Gravity Probe B
As launch day approached for Gravity Probe B, engineers worked to understand an elusive electrical problem. Ultimately the program manager had to decide how to handle it.
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Space-to-Space Communications System
A new project manager found himself beginning his first assignment with no engineering drawings, none of the designers who had worked on an earlier phase of the development, and a team with no technical expertise.
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Viking Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer
The primary objective of the Viking science mission was the stuff of dreams: to determine if there was evidence of life on Mars. Developing an instrument that would enable this analysis would not prove easy.
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TIMED
The TIMED mission got caught in dramatic changes at NASA and was almost terminated. How would you have dealt with mission de-scope? What lessons did the team learn?