My name is Bob Nordeen, and I'm the Mission Operations Manager for the TIMED mission. My job is to build the team of people who will operate the spacecraft after it is launched and to train them in operations before it is launched.

When I was younger my family could not afford to send me to college, so I joined the Army in order to attend college under the GI Bill, which was a program the United States Government had to help soldiers complete their education. I wanted to become educated, and in fact I was the first college graduate in my family! Since I began my career I've taken many classes, gone to seminars and meetings, and taken specialized courses to constantly update my knowledge.

While in the Army I trained on radar, but was advised to go into engineering by some engineers I worked with. After I received my degree in electrical engineering I worked on hardware design and engineering, which included writing software to test spacecraft and designing ways to interface computers with spacecraft. This was early in the space program, and in fact I worked on one of the first teams to integrate computers with spacecraft. Imagine running a modern shuttle or satellite mission without computers!

I've been at APL for 39 years, working on design and operations. Perhaps my favorite time was when I was working on a project that was launched from a platform in the ocean off of the coast of Kenya. It was a rare opportunity to deal with another culture and still be working with the space program! In 1977 I moved, with my family, to California to manage what was supposed to be a 1-year project to build the first spacecraft-mounted Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. The project ultimately took 9 years and ended, sadly, when the rocket launching the instrument exploded only 5 seconds after being launched! The TIMED mission will be the first operational autonomous GPS-driven spacecraft, the goal we were working toward 14 years ago. Essentially, the spacecraft will "know" where it is without being told by people on the ground, allowing a much smaller team to operate the spacecraft than is usually needed. After the original GPS project we moved back to Maryland, and I worked on operations for the Strategic Defense Initiative project, which was unofficially known as "star wars." I have also been the Mission Ops. Director for the MSX mission, and then I was appointed to the TIMED position.

When I was designing, I could see my progress immediately. At that time, there were fewer rules and lesspaperwork to do; everything was so new it was like pioneer days. No one could test and review your designs because hardly anyone else had the knowledge. The space business has gotten so big that there are many rules for safety and people have more specific responsibilities than in the early days. Now my job is to turn groups of individuals into teams in order to accomplish something they could not as individuals. My goal is to make sure that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and I actually enjoy seeing people grow and even surpass me because of the responsibility I give them.

I've always seen myself as somewhat of an opportunist, not dead-set on being something but grabbing opportunities as I saw them. I would recommend that students should concentrate in one specific field, but be sure not to focus on just that one. Get experience in many fields, and look for the opportunities.

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