Matt Lenda

Engineer for the Flight System V&V team to help System and Subsystem engineers develop test plans, link requirements and other verification items, and develop procedures within the "domain" of Information Systems - data management, data storage, CFDP uplink and downlink, commanding, flight software parameter infrastructure, and telecommunications. Built Python tooling for V&V execution and data analysis.

Systems engineer for Data Management, Dream Mode, Sequencing, and Software Load and Patch functional areas of the Mars 2020 flight system. Developed requirements and software guidance to implement vehicle behaviors. Designed and implemented verification and validation (V&V) of these functional areas, including real-time and ex post facto analysis. Spearheaded use of Jupyter Notebooks as a primary V&V execution platform.

One of five flight directors during the Mars 2020 Launch, Cruise, Approach, and EDL (LCAE) phase.

On shift: Led execution of daily activities while maintaining the health and safety of the vehicle. Off shift: Review procedures, develop activities and subsequent procedures, and provide feedback on day-to-day logistics of vehicle operation.

Developed ROBOT software wrappers to generate on-console procedures for activities in flight.

Role lead for Engineering Operations (EO) Systems team on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission.

Led downlink engineering team (TDL) and represented engineering team on uplink (EUL) in tactical operations. Re-architected and re-wrote Systems/Flight Software/Avionics/Fault Protection downlink analysis tools. Activity Lead for R10/R11, R11/R12, and R11.0.5 vehicle Flight Software updates. Conducted test data reviews and managed processes for EO tactical operations.

Led effort to design, develop, implement, and maintain back-end data analytics pipeline and front-end visualization for Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) telemetry, for both immediate tactical health and safety analysis and long-term trending.

Defined and implemented Elasticsearch analytics cluster for core telemetry and other non-fundamental data. Created web-based Systems Dashboard and other visualization analysis tools to assess and visualize rover health across multiple subsystems.

Refactored multi-mission DSN and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) specific sequence models in Activity Plan Generator (APGEN) environment to improve reliability of current AUTOGEN spacecraft sequencing tool, and to improve efficiency of scheduling of spacecraft communications events. Implemented new event scheduling algorithms such as orbital event prediction, data rate selection, "multi-pass de-conflict" of spacecraft communication blocks, and automated retransmits.

Daily tactical operations support for command activity and sequence validation, modeling, and compilation for a variety of missions, namely the Mars Exploration Rovers (Opportunity and Spirit) mission in the Surface phase and the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission in the Cruise and Surface phases. For MSL: Adapted, developed, and maintained a detailed model of the DSN-spacecraft interactions to automate communications window scheduling.

Led 5 small teams of students in evaluation of spacecraft engineering performance for various subsystems. Developed and performed Kepler Attitude Determination and Control System analyses for commissioning and nominal operations engineering support. Re-architected automated daily and weekly spacecraft analysis scripts and routines.