George Jackson

Mr. George Jackson was selected as the NASA Technical Fellow for Avionics in January 2025.  He has over 30 years of experience in space systems engineering and technology development; advancing spaceflight technology for magnetically clean spacecraft; space flight avionics systems; radiation hardened electrical, electronic and electromechanical parts; space communications networks and systems; small satellites and spacecraft integration and environments test.   

From 2018-2024, Mr. Jackson served in the senior executive service as the acting Deputy Director for Institutions, Programs and Business Management in the Sciences and Explorations Directorate and Deputy Director for Technical Management for the Engineering Directorate at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). From 2015-2018, he was the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) Chief Engineer for GSFC where he led an assessment of the use of automotive and commercial components and processes for the Commercial Crew Program. In 2018, he was awarded the Astronaut’s Silver Snoopy Award for contributions to Human Spaceflight Safety.

In 2014, Mr. Jackson was detailed to the NASA Office of Associate Administrator where he led an enterprise level strategic assessment on NASA’s space environments test capabilities.  He also served as Deputy Program Manager for Space Communications and Exploration; Associate Chief of Electrical Engineering; NESC Deputy Avionics Technical Fellow; acting Branch Head of Microwave Communications; and Group Leader in the Flight Electronics Branch at GSFC. He was avionics systems lead for the Magnetospheric MultiScale Mission, Flight Controller Unit lead for the International Space Station Express Logistics Carrier, lead engineer for Space Technology-5 Command and Data Handling subsystem, electronics design engineer for Earth Orbiter-1 Wideband Advanced Recorder Processor and the Naval Research Laboratory’s Microelectronics and Photonics Test Bed.  He has served on several agency level assessments and initiatives, including the NASA 2040 Structures Workstream, NESC Automotive and Commercial Parts Assessment, Technical Capabilities Assessment Team (TCAT), NESC Toyota Unintended Acceleration Study, NESC Programmable Logic Devices Assessment, and the NESC Crew Exploration Vehicle Smart Buyer Study.

Mr. Jackson started his career as an intern at Wallops Flight Facility in 1991. He holds a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from George Washington University, a Bachelors of Science in Physics from Salisbury State University and an Executive Masters of Business Administration from the Jack Welch Management Institute.