Growing up in the Apollo era had a huge impact on Tilley and inspired him to use his imagination throughout his education and career. With aspirations of becoming an astronaut at a young age, Tilley pursued a bachelor’s degree in in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University, New Jersey.
Fueled by a natural curiosity for building things, Tilley has spent more than 35 years as an engineer using that imagination to configure complicated systems. He started his career as a guidance, navigation and controls engineer, and uses both his education and experience to fulfill his role as PPE chief engineer at Maxar, ensuring that the PPE, a spacecraft that will provide power, high-rate communications, attitude control, and orbital transfer capabilities for the Gateway, functions well with the HALO module and all other Gateway elements.
Tilley currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and three children. In his free time, he enjoys bowling and watching ice hockey, a sport he played for 40 years. Always keeping in mind the philosophy of “work hard, play harder,” Tilley is currently working on earning his private pilot license. For the record, he says wouldn’t pass on the opportunity to travel into space as a private citizen in the future.
“The people I’ve met and worked with from across all NASA centers each have different specialties, with a common passion for supporting the country’s space program. It’s easy to find a universal language with the people I work with,” Tilley said.
For more than 20 years, humans have been living and working in low-Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station. Tilley looks forward to extending human presence on and around the Moon through the Gateway program.
“I enjoy looking up at the Moon at night with my kids through a telescope, and I find it really exciting to think that in a few years from now, we can look through a telescope and see Gateway orbiting the Moon. That will be really satisfying,” he said.
To learn more about the Gateway program, visit https://www.nasa.gov/gateway.
Image Credit: Scott Tilley