Well, it isn't "Rockets to Romance" if I don't mention any rockets, right?
How about a spacecraft orbiting Saturn? I've supported the Cassini program for a total of almost 10 years, first with pre-launch work on the programs that run when faults occur, and now supporting operations as the spacecraft went into orbit around Saturn. I can't complain about getting on TV for that!
Plus, Cassini launched on my birthday. And we always have cake at work to celebrate the launch.
This post is in honor of passing my 23rd anniversary at work! Wow. That first day of work, September 9, 1987, I sat in a two hour meeting discussing the approval of adding a new, smaller antenna on the Galileo spacecraft to the back end of it. This allowed us to continue to talk to and hear the spacecraft when the main antenna was pointed at the sun and away from Earth while the orbit took it around Venus. Acronyms were flying past me like that asteroid scene in Star Wars. Now they're second nature.
Over the years, I've done spacecraft development, test, launch and operations, and the last is my favorite.
I've been lucky enough to work on two amazing outer planets missions, to Jupiter and Saturn.
Saturn on National Geographic Channel
My favorite image of Saturn
Many many images of Saturn
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