Careers in Homeland Security
Rocket Science:
Navigating
Through the
Solar System
There is no tech support available on man for Xerox, and evolved with the
Mercury or Pluto. industry into an information technology
specialist.
Two spacecraft are streaming towards op-
posite ends of the solar system – an orbital “I’ve enjoyed and played with comput-
shot around innermost planet Mercury, ers as long as I can remember,” said
and a speeding fly-by of distant Pluto Hill. “And my father bought me my first
– and the National Aeronautics and Space computer in ninth grade. I’ve really loved
Administration had to be certain that the computers all my life.”
complex computer systems controlling
them continuously, work properly. His trek towards space began after
graduating as an electrical engineer from
the University of Buffalo, and joining
Westinghouse, where he worked on air
defense systems and the evolving satellite
telecommunications. “That was my first
experience in space systems,” said Hill,
“and I looked around for more.”
The opportunity came to work as a
NASA contractor at the Goddard Space
Flight Center in Maryland on the ailing
Hubble Telescope, which had to be over-
hauled or scrapped. “When the Hubble
was conceived back in the 1970s,” ex-
plained Hill, “it was pretty advanced for
its time, and had primarily been used for
military operations.
“We had to rewrite all the flight software
Adrian Hill: Spacecraft Technologist
for a new computer which was going to
So NASA entrusted the systems develop- be installed by Space Shuttle astronauts
ment and maintenance of two of the most on a servicing mission.”
ambitious interplanetary space flights of
the 21st century to Adrian Hill. For Hill, Hill had become a specialist in designing
becoming the software technologist for fault systems, a step just shy of artificial
spacecraft marks a natural progression for intelligence. It required the development
a life in computer science. for the controlling mission computer of
sets of operational parameters for every
He grew up in Rochester, New York, system on the orbiting spacecraft, from
where his father started as a copier repair- the thermostat to the giant telescope
22 USBE & Information Technology I January/February 2007
http:www.blackengineer.com
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