My name is Bill Knopf. I'm the Mission Operations Manager for the TIMED mission. I supervise a team of spacecraft specialists and software engineers who will operate and maintain the spacecraft after it is launched.

When I was younger, I watched the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions on TV. I was completely fascinated by them and convinced that I wanted to work in a science-related field. After working on missile programs at APL for a few years, I was asked to help out on a space program called Delta 181. After that, I was hooked! I find working with a team of people who develop integration, test, and mission operations systems to be very exciting. It's our job to thoroughly understand the spacecraft's capabilities and to keep it healthy and flying properly to gain the data needed for scientific study.

I've studied a lot of math, physics, and computer science. I have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in physics, both of which I earned prior to coming to APL. After I started here, I earned a master's degree in computer science at the Johns Hopkins APL campus. I continue to attend seminars and classes, and I attend conferences as both a presenter and a listener.

I started my career working on range safety analysis for the Navy's Trident missile program, then worked on both Trident and space operations until 1993, when I began working primarily on space programs. I've worked on Delta 181, MSX, NEAR, and TIMED. TIMED is my first assignment as a Mission Operations Manager.

Many of the space missions we work on at APL involve one-of-a-kind spacecraft, so each mission is unique, with different scientific goals. I get to work on things that I like, and I learn something new every day, which keeps my job exciting. We conduct many ground simulations to test the spacecraft, instruments, ground system, and operational procedures in anticipation of launch. In order to operate the spacecraft, we have to communicate with it, and that involves using ground stations located all over the world. We schedule these ground station "contacts" in advance but still need to be able to respond to schedule changes in the event of a problem. The work is intense and fast-paced and the days are frequently long, especially since we're a small operations team with a lot of responsibilities.

The best part of this type of job is the satisfaction gained through a successful mission. On launch day, you work through the countdown and watch the launch on closed-circuit TV. That's when you know that it's in the hands of your teamÉ that it's "yours." It's also great to actually be at a launch. It's incredible when you feel the ground shake as the rockets fire and the whole launch vehicle lifts off the ground.

I've been fortunate to have worked with people who operated other historic missions, such as Voyager, Galileo, and Cassini, and I'm proud to be in the same business as they. I absolutely recommend this career to anyone who is excited about space. It requires the ability to focus on goals, good skills in interacting with people, and a desire to work hard to make the job a success. You get to meet a lot of good people on these teams. And, you get to be a part of a great creative process. Before the spacecraft is put on top of the launch vehicle (the rocket), everybody who worked on the team gets to sign his or her name on a plaque. When the rocket is launched, your name goes into space on the spacecraft. That's when you realize that you've signed a technological work of art and know that your name (and reputation) is truly "riding on it."

Back to Careers in Space