The Advanced Engineering and Technology Directorate – that’s a long name, but our mission is simple.
AETD builds the most advanced spacecraft in the world. Our job is to launch advanced sensors and instruments into space and we do this with a remarkable success year after year. The men and women of AETD work closely with teams of scientists to explore new worlds and to better understand our own.
Designing and building new spacecraft is an exciting challenge. Ours is a very creative business because we have to solve problems and invent new technologies every day; this is essence of space exploration.
We take great pride in our work – we wouldn’t work anywhere else! Engineering skills are hard to acquire and it takes a lot of time and patience to master the profession. Persistence pays off though. The reward is being part of teams reaching out into the cosmos to see things for the first time.
We love our jobs and invite you to learn more about space technology and engineering. Get in touch with us – we want to hear from you!
AETD today is the engineering backbone of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. We develop new technologies and ready them for integrated them into a spacecraft.
We design spacecraft, ensuring they can withstand the stress of launch and operate for years in the incredibly harsh conditions of space. What we take for granted here on Earth often will cause systems to fail in space. Think about grease applied to the shaft of a motor, for example. In the vacuum of space a simple material like grease can evaporate and coat lens of cameras rendering them ineffective.
Sometimes a spacecraft we develop is similar to ones launched before; but many other times we find ourselves building a spacecraft heading to environments we’ve haven’t yet encountered. Our engineers and technicians spend many hours thinking about how their designs have to operate; and more importantly, trying to consider what might cause them to fail.
The spacecraft we build often involve NASA working with foreign governments and universities so members of our teams travel around the world collaborating with other experts – building spacecraft is a community effort. Before we build a spacecraft we spend a great deal of time in the design shop. AETD places a lot of emphasis on building advanced computer models and sophisticated simulations of how a spacecraft will deploy and operate in space.
Our people work in state-of-the-art laboratories, many of them having been built to replicate the unusual environments our spacecraft will find themselves in. Thousands of custom built parts and components are assembled into larger systems. Systems like propulsion, power, guidance, data handling, and software are then integrated into a mechanical structure and exposed to rigorous testing.
Eventually everything is ready to go – the next step is getting to the launch pad. AETD engineers and scientists from other Goddard divisions and international teams eventually find themselves a short distance from the rocket that will carry years of hard work on a voyage of unprecedented discovery. Imagine the tension in the hearts and minds of AETD engineers and technicians when the ultimate moment arrives – a button is pushed, flames leap from booster engines, and with a deafening roar a voyage of exploration begins.
These few short videos will give you a taste of life in AETD; an awesome place to be!
Build me a virtural spacecraft - the enormous James Webb Space Telescope:
I see a speck of dust in there....
Hey, let's see if it works - the "Spacecraft Chamber of Horrors"
People build space machines, and AETD’s people build the best space machines around. Passion drives our people and their creativity is boundless. Our talented teams are given the best tools, state-of-the-labs, and the freedom to create. Being part of a space mission is an amazing experience.
Talk to anyone at Goddard and you’ll find this passion pouring forth. There are few working environments where you can find such an intense level of commitment to what we call “mission success”.
Probably the most difficult job on any mission team is the Project Manager (PM); AETD has some of the best in the business. Each PM has to be a masterful engineer or scientist, an expert manager, a motivational wiz, and adept at getting hundreds of people pointing in the same direction.
AETD has engineered some of the most complex spacecraft ever devised and the pride felt within our teams is boundless. Here’s a small sample of our teams at work:
Blacker that Black - Developing the tools to see deeper into space:
Titan - a model of the early Earth?
Life on Mars - Meet the team designing instruments for the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument just launched on the Mars Science Laboratory
Black Holes and Gamma Rays - hear from the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) team
NASA grows by attracting young people with a head for science and a heart exploration. Passionate students are our greatest inspiration. High School/College Summer Internships and the Cooperative Education (Co-Op) Program are AETD's greatest source of employment and enable our most valuable pipeline to expand our workforce.
Hundreds of students and educators contribute to Goddard's mission through internship programs each year. Students engage in Goddard's revolutionary mission and research projects, which inspire a life-long interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Goddard internship participants work alongside the Center's world-renowned engineers and scientists, contributing significantly to missions, projects, and other endeavors.
CLICK HERE to find out more about our High School, Undergraduate and Graduate Programs.
The Co-Op Program is an important link in the educational process that integrates college level academic study with full-time meaningful work experience. This is achieved through a working agreement between GSFC and a number of educational institutions.
This agreement allows the students, through study and work experience, to enhance their academic knowledge, personal development, and professional preparation.
Additionally, co-op employees earn income that is based on the level of education and work experience they have attained. Students rotate from work to school on a semester or quarterly basis. CLICK HERE
Meet more AETD interns and co-ops:
Ryan Hannahoe, a Montana State University education student spent the summer teaching others about the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the successor to the Hubble telescope that is designed to unravel the mystery of how the universe grew from a big bang into galaxies, stars and planets.
As an intern on the JWST program Ryan helped coordinate the mission’s role in various educational and public outreach events, such as an astronomy night on the National Mall and an informal exhibit at a D.C. area museum.
Ryan also developed educational content, trained educators and worked with others, such as celebrity Bill Nye the Science Guy, to bring information about the telescope to the public. "The internship was probably the best thing I've ever done," said Hannahoe, 26, who is originally from Pennsylvania. "By working with JWST, so many doors have opened."
Amanda Mills
This co-op experience has been extremely enjoyable and I definitely look forward to next spring. The center has so many different activities including Science Jamborees, lectures from world-renowned scientists, and even eating lunch with astronauts! Without question, I recommend pursuing a co-op at GSFC.
Elaine Petro
I have been a Co-op in Code 546, Contamination & Thermal Coatings, at GSFC since this January. I’ve been placed on the James Webb Space Telescope Project and I will also be doing a research project in which I will help develop a Cavity Ring-down Spectroscopy system to monitor contamination levels and thus extend on orbit laser lifetime. I’ll be an undergraduate senior in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland.
George Bussey
My NASA internship was exciting and challenging. The highlight of the experience was using STK to perform communication coverage analysis of the next manned mission to the moon.
Heather Bradshaw
As a co-op working as a spacecraft thermal engineer at NASA, I have had the pleasure of doing some pretty exciting things. From helping influence the design of a spacecraft using 3d modeling, to actually making the spaceflight hardware and going into a clean room to install it on a satellite, and then watching it drive off the Center on its way down to Florida for launch, nothing beats the experience of working at NASA. My job is to help develop, build, and test spacecraft that will explore the stars and discover the mysteries of the universe – for me, it’s a dream come true!
Jayrick Hayes
The title of my research was "On-wafer Magnetic Material Characterization. This summer I was to characterize a high permeability Permalloy ring. It will be used in an onchip superconducting lateral transformer for use in long-wavelength and X-ray astronomy readout systems. I conducted several annealing tests to find ways of creating proper domain walls that would reduce Barkhausen noise and lead to a successful low noise read out system. My summer research experience here at Goddard was awesome and it strengthened my skills as an aspiring engineer for the future. I loved every minute of the experience and I hope to come back next summer. My mentors were very instrumental figures that made my research experience at Goddard amazing.
Jonathan Boblitt
I've been working on programmable logic (an FPGA). I developed an FPGA core that can send and receive commands to control a 16 channel analog to digital converter. An FPGA can be programmed to act as any device inside your computer, such as a graphics card, ram, or processor. Since the FPGA is a programmable logic device it is infinitely customizable, and it will be used on the space cube, which is the next generation of space computing. The space cube is normally responsible for getting data, pre-processing the data, and sending the data to the ground. The space cube speeds are up to a magnitude larger than today's normal space computing. So ultimately, I'm responsible for retrieving all of the analog signals that enter the space cube system (Temperature sensors, Pressure sensors, Accelerometer readings).
Michael Nayak
I came to Goddard to continue my low-energy chaotic trajectory research and got to work with world experts on navigation and Flight Dynamics on trajectory analysis for the first two-probe mission around the Moon! It was the experience of a lifetime!
Rashmi Shah
Working at GSFC has been an exciting, challenging, and rewarding experience. During my time here, I worked on several different projects and learned to use new software, including STK. My largest project involved post-processing raw GPS data collected by the RNS during HST Servicing Mission 4.
Sergio Carrasco-Martos
As a NASA Academy European student, I have spent a unique and exciting summer at Goddard. I worked on several activities at the Communications, Standards and Technology Laboratory, including communications and coverage studies of Earth observation and interplanetary missions. As part of the NASA Academy experience, I also visited other NASA sites (e.g., Houston, Kennedy, ...), met with prominent professionals from the American space sector, and improved my teamwork and leadership skills through group activities and specific training.
Shawheen Farzad
I developed and documented a property inventory system using a Pocket-PC equipped bar code scanner and Microsoft Access for database generation and maintenance.
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We take great pride in our work – we wouldn’t work anywhere else! Engineering skills are hard to acquire and it takes a lot of time and patience to master the profession. Persistence pays off though. The reward is being part of teams reaching out into the cosmos to see things for the first time.
Probably the most difficult job on any mission team is the Project Manager (PM); AETD has some of the best in the business. Each PM has to be a masterful engineer or scientist, an expert manager, a motivational wiz, and adept at getting hundreds of people pointing in the same direction.
