Orbital Sciences Corporation, in Chandler, AZ.
1991 - 1995
Electrical Engineer, RF Systems
Since the layoff from Motorola GEG took me by surprise, it took me about 6 months to find my next job, working for Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC). This company was founded as the Space Data Corporation and started making small rockets and radiosondes for testing atmospheric conditions for weather balloon and other rocket launches, but they were bought by Orbital Sciences, a Virginia-based company which specialized in small satellite designs who was interested in larger rocket programs, especially those related to the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (commonly called the 'Star Wars' program), a missile-defense military program initially proposed by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
By the 1990s, various military contractors were working on a large variety of different aspects of this program which was managed by a newly-formed branch of the military called the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). OSC won a contract to conduct a series of short, suborbital rocket launches designed to test various aspects of the ballistic-phase interception of incoming warheads. These suborbital rocket launches used 'small' rockets (about 6 feet in diameter and 4-stories tall) to launch things into space for experiments that would last less than 30 minutes, and then return to earth (not the larger rockets that launch things into orbit).
Things I did...
(click an assignment for more details)
- RF Systems Engineer and launch team member for LEAP 3 Kinetic Kill Vehicle space intercept testing at White Sands Missile Range
- Designed and programmed a software system to analyze the Signal-to-Noise Ratio in spacecraft-to-ground RF systems throughout space missions
The reason I left this job...
This was a fascinating place to work, and this company gave young engineers a great deal of flexibility and autonomy in designing and making engineering decisions. However, the workload was extreme while I was employed there...typical work weeks of 80+ hours, culminating in accompanying a rocket to the launch site where you worked 12 hour days, 6 days a week for 8 weeks, and this was wearing me down a bit. I was also becoming less motivated to work in the defense industry for personal reasons, and wished to switch to the commercial work world.
Before describing my next engineering job, I should mention something about the software hobby programming I was also doing at this time.