PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

A self-motivated Engineer with over seventeen years of work experience in different areas of the Space domain, especially in Procurement for ESA.  People oriented with strong interpersonal, problem solving and decision making skills. 

WORK EXPERIENCE

EILS and MOI-IT Support Team Member @ European Space Operations Centre, Germany     [November 2011 – February 2023]

Telespazio Deutschland GmbH, Darmstadt

As a part of the ESTRACK Integrated Logistics Support (EILS) and Mission Operations Infrastructure – Information Technology and Operations Control Centre Support team, I was responsible for the following activities:

ESTRACK Maintenance:

Maintenance activities for the ESA Tracking Stations and the

ESTRACK Central Spares Stocks, handling the Spare Requests, Repair Requests, Calibration Requests and Inspection Measurement and Test Activities for  the ESTRACK Configuration Control Database (ECDB).

Procurement for ESTRACK Ground Stations:

Procurement of Spares & Investments for ESTRACK Ground Stations and Central Spares from the Frame-Contracted Companies and Suppliers by launching Shopping Carts for Work Orders and Purchase Orders through the SAP Module.  Additionally, responsible for the Fast Track Procurement Process for Cost Reimbursable Budgets.

Procurement for MOI IT and OCC:

Coordination with the ESOC Procurement Department for  purchasing of hardware items and software licenses for Mission Operations IT and Operation Control Centre sections.

Supplier identification and selection, negotiating pricing , and doing RFQs.  Analysing the Quotes from suppliers internally to save the expenses.  Management of Vendor Database.  Procurement for Renewal of software licenses.  Procurements from major IT hardware and software vendors.

ESTRACK Logistics/Supply Chain:

Liaisons with ESOC transport areas for incoming and outgoing goods. Preparation and completion of transport papers. Forwarding and dispatch of received equipment. Organisation of the logistic meetings with the ESTRACK stations. Coordination with the ESA Transport Office, Customs Broker and ESTRACK Ground Stations for the transportation of Ground Station equipment from Argentina/Malargue  Ground Station to ESOC and also the Frame Contracted Companies for Repairs and Calibration

ESTRACK Inventory:

Inventory Management Activities of the ESTRACK Central Spares Stocks (ECS) and support Physical Inspections and Audits. Responsible for the ESTRACK Central Spares. Stock and spare organisation. Organisation of the ESTRACK stocks at ESOC. Review of stock reports from the ESTRACK stations.

Conduct physical inventories (on a yearly basis).

Tools Used: Enterprise Resource Planning Software, SAP ERP 6.0 (ESA-P), Configuration Control Database ECDB, ARTS Change Management Tool

ESTRACK – Monitoring & Control Technical Support @ European Space Operations Centre, Germany   [August 2008 - April 2011]

Makalumedia GmbH, Darmstadt, Germany

As a part of the M&C Support team, I was involved in the following areas of work:

Tailoring the ESTRACK Ground Station Database according to the requirements from the Station Engineers.

Maintaining the ESTRACK Configuration Control Database (ECDB) with the goal of eventually getting them all the ESTRACK Stations on the same software release version.

Synchronization of ECDB with the Operational station database version.

Participation in Factory Acceptance Tests (FAT) and On-site Acceptance Test (OSAT) for new versions of GSTS, OTTO and STC.

Preparing relevant Documentation for the Tailoring Team & ECDB Maintenance Team.

Participation in the Tailoring Review Board Meetings and Technical Meetings within the M&C (Monitoring and Control) Support Team.

Tools used : STC, ECDB, ARTS

IT Consultant  [January 2007 - July 2008]

Quipu GmbH, Frankfurt, Germany

  The Company has two software modules, "Bankware" and Customware"; Bankware is tailored to the administration, bookkeeping and general accounting requirements of small and medium-sized financial institutions and Customware is designed to administer loan portfolios, deposit-side operations and payment transactions. There is an abstraction layer, "Excavator Interface" for the translation of every meaningful Customware transaction or log file event into one or more correspondent Bankware transactions. I was involved in the Design, Plan and Implementation phases of the Excavator. Net Interface.

Software Used: Python 2.5, SQL Server 2000

Research Assistant  [January 2002 - December 2003]

Fraunhofer Research Institute (IGD), Darmstadt, Germany

  WiBA-Modular Training System is based on the MTS Learning Management System, which is customized to the specific user requirements of the WiBA-NET project.  Its application area is the university education in the field of architecture and civil engineering.  It represents a combination of the general LMS on one hand and application specific modules and user functionalities on the other. The System Components of WiBa-Net are central repository for learning objects, LOM-based metadata editor, the communication Module and Realization module.

In this project, my focus was the module called Realization, a web-based solution which allows the user (learner or author), to access to the whole system via internet browser. The realization aspects contains

Implementation in Java

XML for the separation of presentation and logic

XSLT for personalization and internationalization

Software Used: XML, XSLT, Xpath, XSL-FO, CSS, Java2, JSP and Servlets

Software Engineer [March 2001 – December 2001]

FS-Forth Systeme GmbH, Breisach, Germany

I was a part of the project team which measured the level of Glucose in the blood samples of Diabetes Patients and suggests the amount of Insulin to be injected.  I was working on the CRC Algorithm, which was included in the Welcome Application of the project.

Software Used: C, Palm OS on Windows 98

Software Engineer Trainee [October 2000 – February 2001]

Heiler Software AG, Stuttgart, Germany

As a part of the Green Profi project team, I was trained to develop Business Objects and Data Access Objects.

Software Used: Visual Basic 6.0, SQL Server 7.0, and Visual  SourceSafe on Windows 2000

Lecturer [January 2000 – September 2000]

Department of Electronics and Communication and Computer Science Engineering, Satyabama College of Engineering, India

I was teaching various subjects related to Computer Science Engineering, Information Technology and Electronics and Communication to the final year Engineering College Students

Academic Project for Master’s Degree [May 1999 – December 1999]

Electronics Research and Development Centre, Trivandrum, India  

Flight Simulator

Within the scope of the Academic project, I developed a Software Program in VC++ based on Fuzzy Logic Concepts of Neural Networks.  By defining and applying a few input parameters, the project demonstrated the Thrust Efficiency and Pressure on a Flight Simulator.

Software Used: Visual C++

TRAININGS

ITIL Certification in IT Service Management (2016)

Time Management Training, Telespazio (2012)

Appealing Rhetoric Training, Telespazio (2012)

Configuration Management Training, Telespazio (2009)

Anomaly Report Tracking System (ARTS), ESOC (2008)

XML&XSLT, Fraunhofer Research Institute (2002)

EXTRA CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES AND OTHER AREAS OF INTEREST

STEMFAS e.V (www.stemfas.com) [February 2020 till date]

As a founding member and Chairperson of STEMFAS e.V, actively involved in imparting STEM based subjects to school children and young engineers. Some of the projects which we have executed so far include:

Building Moon Camp Base in 3D Modelling

Astro Pi with Raspberry Pi

Climate Detectives

CADSAT – 3D Modelling of a small satellite using TinkerCAD

CANSAT – Designing a mini satellite

Robotics Mini Lab

Secretary of ESOC Science & Space Club [January 2018 – December 2019]

Was actively involved in the execution of various projects in  Space Exploration for School Children

KRIONICS SPACE (www.krionics-space.com) [March 2020 till September 2022]

As the Director of Operations and Content Development for Krionics Space Inc, a start-up in Washington D.C. I was actively involved in educating school children in the Space Domain.

Founder of the Organization, Thankaian Memorial School of Innovation, Research and Engineering, (TMIRE Makerspace India – www.tmire-makerspace.com), a start up in India [March 2020 till date]

Have set up a STEM Lab in Abdul Kalam International School, Kanyakumari, India where school students learn about STEM subjects and do practical experiments using STEM Lab.  Currently training a batch of College Students in various Technologies in the area of Electronics and Communication, Computer Science and Space Education.