Behind the Badge
GETTING TO KNOW THE FACES of 400
Brett Sapper Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Flight Operations Team (FOT) Technical Lead (Code 444) Born Baltimore, MD Education BSEE from Widener University
As the lead engineer of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Flight Operations Team (FOT), Brett is responsible for providing technical direction to the FOT to ensure all operations activities are scheduled and executed as described in the Flight Operations Plan.
Life Before Goddard Brett Sapper grew up in Bowie, MD, playing many intramural sports, playing in the middle and high school bands, and earning the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. He graduated from Widener University in Chester, PA, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering in 1991.
Life at Goddard Brett came to Goddard in the fall of 1992, following in his father Larry’s footsteps. Larry Sapper was a civil servant at Goddard until his passing in December 1987. Brett started his first engineering job with Bendix Field Engineering Corporation learning the ropes of flight operations on the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) Flight Operations Team. After the end of the COBE 48
NASA/GSFC THE CRITICAL PATH
mission, and a brief 2-month stint on the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS), he moved on to a pre-launch, real-time engineering position on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) in 1994, a joint European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA mission. SOHO is where Brett learned all the background work and preparations that go into launching and flying an observatory. He spent many weeks and months performing release testing against requirements documents; coding, compiling and testing flight procedures; and learning how to configure and test against the software simulator. He performed interface testing, radio frequency (RF) testing with the Deep Space Network (DSN) stations, and Ground Spacecraft Compatibility Testing. Brett
stayed on SOHO from this prelaunch design phase through launch and commissioning, the prime mission, the mission interruption, and into the extended mission phase. His time on SOHO garnered his deep appreciation for the DSN schedulers that schedule the passes with the observatory, the hardware maintenance personnel and system administrators that kept all the machines in the Mission Operations Center (MOC) running, and the other project support staff that make flying a mission possible. In 2004, Brett moved on to become the first member of the SDO FOT. After a year of working on operations concepts, the initial MOC design, and requirements definition, a change in team leadership allowed him to take the role of FOT technical lead. Brett led the team as the FOT
