Jennifer E. McLean

Summary

What do I do for a living? I send spacecraft to other planets! Okay, I'm not solely responsible for the space program, but it certainly is exciting to be a part of it. Ever since I was a small child, I have been fascinated with outer space. Now I get paid to follow that childhood dream.

I work in the Navigations Systems section at JPL. My duties include the design, development, and implementation of a NASA information system called SPICE for managing geometrical and related ancillary data used to plan space observations and interpret space science instrument data.

For example, when a camera on board a spacecraft sends its data back to earth, the scientists who are studying the images need to know: when was this picture taken? where was the spacecraft at that time? where was the sun? where was the camera pointed? what should it have seen? how fast was it moving? The SPICE software answers these kinds of questions, and it is used in support of several missions including Voyager 2, Magellan, Galileo, Mars Observer, and CRAF (Comet Rendezvous and Asteroid Flyby).

In the applied mathematics program at the University of Colorado, I chose an emphasis in computer science. My computer expertise has proved invaluable in my work and certainly increased my job opportunities. During my years in school, I worked at IBM doing software integration and testing a large system that operates satellites. Prior to that, I worked at NOAA's Space Environment Laboratory (SEL).