FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE WEBINAR
Practicing Fly-Fix-Fly: Re-flight Opportunity Through NASA TechLeap Prize
Speakers:
- Ben Gorr, PhD Candidate, SEAK (Systems Engineering, Architecture, and Knowledge) Lab at Texas A&M University
- Paul De León, Flight Opportunities Campaign Manager
August 2, 2023
Abstract
Principal investigator Ben Gorr from the SEAK (Systems Engineering, Architecture, and Knowledge) Lab at Texas A&M University will speak to his experience as a winner of NASA’s first TechLeap Prize, Autonomous Observation Challenge No. 1, as well as his team’s recent opportunity to re-fly their technology on a station-keeping high-altitude balloon flight. Joined by Flight Opportunities team members, presenters will explore the “fly-fix-fly” ethos of the Flight Opportunities program and highlight best practices for quickly advancing space technologies while responding to unexpected challenges and collaborating with fellow innovators.
Flight Opportunities encourages the community to engage in these conversations. Please send questions to nasa-flightopportunities@mail.nasa.gov.
Download the slides
Speaker Bios
Ben Gorr is a PhD student in Aerospace Engineering at the College of Engineering at Texas A&M University. Prior to graduate school, Ben received a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Texas A&M and worked on several projects within the SEAK Lab. For D-SHIELD, Ben worked at the intersection of constellation and instrument design for a smart soil moisture monitoring constellation. For X-Grants, he studied instrument and orbit design for a water quality monitoring mission, as well as planning satellite operations to maximize coverage of events. For SNAP (Satellite for Natural and Artificial Plumes), he led the design and manufacture of a high-altitude balloon payload for identification and study of plumes on Earth’s surface. In the short term, Ben looks forward to expanding our understanding of the interaction of instrument and orbit design for space missions as well as the planning of satellite operations.
Paul De León is a flight campaign manager for Flight Opportunities, providing technical direction and managing reduced-gravity parabolic, high-altitude balloon, and suborbital flight campaigns with the goal of maturing space technologies of interest to NASA. With a tenure of over 20 years, Paul has supported multiple NASA projects and programs in a variety of fields including airborne science, space vehicle thermal protection systems, space-borne payload development, and integration and launch. Paul has received numerous NASA certificates, awards, and honors during his career, including a 2018 NASA Ames Engineering Honor Award for outstanding contributions to the Flight Opportunities program. He has also completed the NASA-sponsored graduate program in Space Systems Engineering through the Stevens Institute of Technology as well as NASA’s Systems Engineering Leadership Development Program.
