Saturday, October 19

The Marshall Star for September 18, 2024

NASA Chief Scientist and Senior Climate Advisor Kate Calvin, center left, signs up with employee at the firm’s Marshall Space Flight Center for a Climate and Science Town Hall on Sept. 17 in Activities Building 4316. Calvin participated in a question-and-answer session throughout her go to that was live streamed agencywide. Joining her in the session were, from left, Rahul Ramachandran, research study researcher and senior information science strategist for the Science Research and Project Division at Marshall; Marshall Earth Science Branch Chief Andrew Molthan; Marshall Chief Scientist Renee Weber; Marshall Center Director Joseph Pelfrey; and Marshall Science and Technology Office Manager Julie Bassler, who moderated the panel. (NASA/Krisdon Manecke)

Molthan addresses a concern throughout the Climate Town Hall. Subjects gone over throughout the city center consisted of the reaction by NASA and Marshall to environment modification, the impacts of environment modification on NASA and Marshall goals, and how NASA and Marshall are assisting companies worldwide react to environment modification. (NASA/Krisdon Manecke)

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By Celine Smith

Jacob Onken remembers his dad, Jay Onken, waking him up one early morning at 3 a.m. when he was 9 years of ages to view the International Space Station fly overhead. At the time, his papa was a POD– a payload operations director– at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center leading flight controllers who support science experiments aboard the orbiting lab 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Now, the more youthful Onken has actually begun a brand-new chapter in his profession as a POD at Marshall, following in his dad’s steps. The dad and kid are the very first relative to serve in this function at Marshall. Onken stated that taken place by opportunity, regardless of maturing NASA-adjacent.

Jacob Onken started his aerospace profession with an internship at Teledyne Brown Engineering while making a bachelor’s degree in computer technology at Auburn University in Alabama. The internship took him to Marshall’s Payload Operations Integration Center– a location his daddy had actually worked and frequently taken him when he was more youthful. Associates warmly kept in mind the veteran POD and invited to the function.

After finishing with a bachelor’s degree in computer technology in 2018, Onken worked as a specialist with Teledyne for NASA. As an information management organizer (DMC) he sat console and discovered to run information and video systems aboard the spaceport station.

“I truly discovered myself out here, and I enjoyed it,” he stated. “Working in area flight operations is remarkably cool and useful to mankind.”

After training for over a year, he made his DMC accreditation and later on was appointed as the lead DMC for spaceport station Expeditions 62 and 63. He later on functioned as the DMC training lead, preparing brand-new flight controllers for accreditation. In this function, he trained 13 DMCs for accreditation, utilizing a people-based management method he gained from his daddy.

Well before the spaceport station flew,

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