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CV: Spacecraft operations Engineer
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Date Submitted: Last Modified: Current job: Employment Term: Job location: Date available: Industry: KeywordsNationality : Irish
Date of Birth : 02/11/1979
Work Experience
Institute: European Space Operations Centre
Company : Telespazio Vega Duetchland
Years: December 2012 – Present
Member of the Flight Control Team for the X-Ray and Gamma Ray missions XMM-Newton and Integral. Repsonsible for the testing and validation of the terrestrial to spacecraft communication systems and general routine mission operations.
• Validation of new ground stations and re-validation of existing support stations after major upgrades
• Scheduling of external G/S during non-nominal support periods (e.g LEOPs, Doentime due to maintanenc activity, eclipse)
• Defining mission planning requirements for future support
• Periodic RF System performance checks
• Additional responsibility for periodic maintanece and operation of payload sub-systems
Institute: Spanish National Observatory, Guadalajara
Years: October 2007 – April 2012
Functional Title: Instrument Engineer/Project Engineer
Instrument Engineer Jul 2009- Present
Contracted as an Instrument Engineer within the Instrumentation Group to carry out diverse task within the operating environment of the Observatory and the operation of an anechoic chamber
Instrumentation Group Tasks
- Optical design and implementation of a free space network analyser for material and RF component characterization
- Calibration and upgrade of 40 m Cassegrain-Nasmyth type telescope
- Optical design to adapt the Cassegrain focal plane of the Yebes 40 m radio telescope to a newly installed 100 GHz superconducting receiver
- Optical design and installation of an anti reflection cone and a dielectric structure to improve the efficiency of the 40 m telescope
- Design of a wideband calibrator for K/Q/W band receivers
Anechoic Chamber Tasks
- Engineer responsible for the design of and procurement of all elements for a state-of-the-art ultra wideband anechoic chamber functioning from 2 -140 GHz
- Co-ordination of the diverse suppliers and manufacturers contracted to fabricate the chamber
- Management of all acceptance test and commissioning of the chamber
- System debugging
- Implementation of new protocols for the automating of measurements and data post-processing
- Definition and commercialization of chamber antenna measurement services
Project Engineer Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Oct 2007 – Jun 2009
Responsible for the management of the Spanish contribution of a 1m2 aperture array for the Square Kilometre Design Study (SKADS)
- Responsible for the technical design of a 1m2 antenna array based on tapered slotline antennas
- Responsible for the overseeing of the design of low noise differential amplifiers
- Responsible for overseeing the construction and integration of all RF components and associated elements that comprised the array
- Responsible for the design of a noise measurement system for aperture arrays
- Point of contact for the work group task associated with the Spanish consortium with responsibility for presentation of project development at SKA meetings
Institute: The Space Research Organisation of the Netherlands (SRON), Groningen
Years Active: Dec 2005- Dec 2006
Functional Title: Instrument Scientist
Invited in 2006 to assist, working within the Assembly, Integration and Verification (AIV) team as a full time instrument scientist, to space qualify and calibrate the Flight Model (FM) of the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared (HIFI) which flew on ESAs Herschel Space Observatory in 2009
AIV Tasks
· Fully integrated in all operational aspects of the flight model verification including
o Characterization of the polarization interferometric modules
o Measurement and analysis of all the optical and feed subsystems of the of HIFI
· Collaboration in the HIFI calibration team with specific involvement in the definition of calibration pipeline procedures and software products for the instruments linearity and frequency response
· Incorporation in the instrument control software group with responsibility for developing and testing FM scripts for space craft operations via SCOS (Space Craft operating System
Education
2002 – 2007 National University of Ireland, Maynooth
PhD (Experimental Physics)
“The Quasioptical Verification of the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared for the Herschel Space Observatory and Standing Waves in Quasioptical Systems”
Final Grade: Awarded November 2007
· PhD undertaken in the THz Optics and Technology Groupunder the supervision of Dr Neil Trappe and Prof Anthony Murphy with specialization in the field of GHz/THz optical modeling techniques and verification.
· This research was of a very applied nature as the group was collaborating in a number of major projects. The main emphasis was on optical techniques for GHz/THz systems (also known as quasioptics (QO)).
These QO principles were applied to the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared (HIFI) which flew on the Herschel Space Observatory in 2009. Key goals and objectives included
· Providing detailed, rigorous models of this complex off-axis spectrometer device
· Providing test engineer support to the Assembly, Integration and Verification team during a comprehensive measurement campaign in the Space Institute of the Netherlands full verification and qualification of HIFI could be obtained.
· Collaborative research with world class research institutes in Cambridge, Stanford and Cardiff Universities into GHz/THz systems and novel applications
· Development of novel optics technique based on Gaussian Beam Modes that allows modeling of standing wave behaviour and aberrations simultaneously in optical systems while including a wide range of optical components including antennae structure.
· Experimentally validating these models in receiver systems operated at 94 GHz in Maynooth.
· Participation in ESA project “Cosmic Vision: The Birth, Life and Death of Stars” in Albach, Austria. Project goal was to define possible future ESA space projects from fundamental science concept through feasibility study to technical specification of instrumentation and science goals.
1998 – 2002 National University of Ireland, Maynooth
Bachelor of Science (Double Honours)
Final Grade: 1st Class
The breakdown of subjects over the four years was as follows:
Year 3 & 4: Exp Physics, Chemistry
Year 2: Exp Physics, Chemistry, Maths
Year 1: Exp Physics, Chemistry, Computer Science, Maths
- Final year Physics project at the visible/radio astronomy facility in NUI Maynooth by developing control and data acquisition software for a large aperture optical telescope illuminating a CCD detector.
- Final year project for Chemistry, shortlisted for a national research excellence award, was based on developing a method for measuring cerebral blood flow via a H2 clearance method
Key Skill Sets
Software
- Expert in the development of analysis and data processing software on the Mathematica and MatLab platforms. Experience of C++, Labview and Visual Basic.
- Expertise in ESA's Space Craft Operating systems software for remote telecommanding of satellite systems based in a tcl programming environment
- Expertise with a wide range of commercially available optical/antenna modeling software packages such as industry standard GRASP, HFSS, CST, ZEMAX, GLAD and AutoCAD for optical, mechanical antenna and waveguide component design and analysis.
- Experience with IDL for data analysis
- Experience in LINUX based operating systems
- Experience of ESA's Herschel project data handling/processing software HIPEbased in a Python programming environment
- Expertise in Windows operating system and associated software
Technical
- Expertise in the design, integration and measurement of optical systems on optical benches.
- Expert in the development of comprehensive optical modeling techniques
- Extensive work on optical integration/alignment techniques and measurement campaigns in clean and cryogenic environments.
- Expertise in the use of microwave laboratory equipment such as Network Analysers, Spectrum Analyser and solid-state frequency sources and components from 10 MHz to 1 THz.
Communication
- Excellent formal communication skills developed from multiple presentations at international conferences, seminars and group meetings and laboratory demonstrations.
- Demonstrated ability to work in multi-disciplinary and multinational projects
- Highly innovative and motivated individual with the ability to work both in groups and individually and dedicated to continuous learning and upgrading of core skills.
- Native English speaker
- Fluency in Spanish
Publications
“The CDT Ultra Wide Band Anechoic Chamber”, Serna JM, Finn T et al, Proceedings EUCAAP 5th Conference, pp 670-674, Rome 2011
“Focussing System for a 300 GHz radar with two target distances”, Montero-de-Paz J, Garcia E, Finn T et al, Proceedings EUCAAP 4th Conference, pp 939-943, Rome 2011
“FIDA3 : A Novel Active Array Design for the Mid-Frequency Range of the Square Kilometre Array”, Garcia E, Finn T et al, Proceedings EUCAAP 4th Conference, pp 1-4, Barcelona 2010
“The Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared – An Instrument for the Herschel Space Observatory”, Proceedings 2nd MCCT-SKADS Training School for Radio Astronomy: Fundamental and New Instruments, Siguenza (Spain) 2008 (Invited Speaker)
“Gaussian-Beam Mode Analysis of Reflection and transmission in Multilayer Dielectrics”, Finn T et al, J Opt Soc Am A, Vol 25, pp 80-89 (2008)
“The Gaussian beam Mode Analysis of off-axis aberrations in long wavelength Systems”, Finn T et al, Infrared Physics and Technology, Vol 51, pp 351-359 (2007)
“Gaussian Beam Mode Analysis of Standing Waves in Optical Systems”, Finn T, Proceedings 28th ESA Antenna Workshop on Space Antennas Systems and Technologies
“Quasioptical verification of the focal plane optics of the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared”, Candotti M, Finn T et al, Proceedings of SPIE Conference on Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, Glasgow (2004)
Aditional Information
- Full EU Driving
- Member IEEE
- Member of European Virtual Antenna Centre of Excellence
Referees
Dr Jose Antonio Lopez Fernandez Dr Marcus Kirsch
Director of Observatorio de Yebes XMM-Newton Spacecraft Manager
Cerro de la Palera s/n Robertboschstrasse 5
19141Guadalajara (Yebes) Darmstadt 64293
Spain Germany
Email: ja.lopez(at)oan.es Email: marcus.kirsch(at)esa.int
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