Events Calendar

NASA’s Planetary Science—Where Science Fiction Meets Reality”

This is a past event.

Thursday, November 21, 2024, 4 pm

This is a past event.

MAE Graduate Seminar Speaker Series

proudly presents

Shannon Fitzpatrick, FAC-P/PM

NASA

Abstract

NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Planetary Science Division, studies the origin and history of the solar system, the potential for life elsewhere, and habitability elsewhere, all while looking for the hazards and resources present in these other worlds. NASA’s Planetary Science Division (PSD) is charting new territory with its next missions to the outer planets, their moons, our moon and Mars. These missions would’ve once been thought of as science fiction, but PSD is bringing them to reality. Ms. Shannon Fitzpatrick, NASA Headquarters Director of Planetary Science Flight Programs, will share her efforts in managing the Planetary Science portfolio of spacecraft in development and currently operating. She is the NASA authority for this portfolio. These include missions like the recently launched Europa Clipper flagship mission to Jupiter, the next mission to scan the skies for Earth harming asteroids, Neo Surveyor; the return of material from a world outside our solar system with the Osiris-Rex mission; the next helo-drone mission that will travel to Saturn’s moon, Titan, with Dragonfly; and many more. Throughout her presentation, Ms. Fitzpatrick will share her career path, what it took to get there, what it’s really like to work at NASA Headquarters, and wisdom gained along the way.

Bio

Shannon Fitzpatrick is government Senior Executive serving as the NASA Associate Director for Flight Programs, Planetary Science Division, Science Mission Directorate (SMD) at NASA Headquarters. In this role she manages the $5B annual budget; spacecraft and/or instrument projects in formulation, development, or operations; and a team responsible for managing the Discovery, New Frontiers, and Solar System Exploration Programs and well as other assigned projects. She oversees planning, budgeting and coordination for Planetary missions through every phase of the mission life cycle and collaborates with interagency and international partners for the successful execution of these missions. Ms. Fitzpatrick previously served as the Assistant Deputy Associate Administrator for Programs within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. In this position she was responsible for supporting the program management and success of the entire SMD mission portfolio across multiple science disciplines. She monitored, tracked, facilitated, and communicated program/project performance of the SMD flight portfolio throughout the mission life cycle, ensuring communication and/or compliance of Federal/Agency/SMD policies, practices, and processes both within the Directorate and to NASA senior leadership. Before her role as SMD ADAAP, Shannon served as a NASA Program Executive within the Science Mission Directorate/Heliophysics Division. As a Program Executive she was the programmatic and technical authority in the management and administration of complex NASA aerospace programs. Prior to joining the SMD team at NASA HQ, Ms. Fitzpatrick served as the Chief of NASA Wallop’s Range and Mission Management Office, NASA’s only owned and operated launch range. As the Range Chief she led the management and technical readiness of the Wallops Research Range, including Project Management, launch operations, aeronautical testing and oversight of Range instrumentation systems and personnel, as well as serving as the interface to outside agencies, organizations and state and federal government. Ms. Fitzpatrick was the first female Range Chief at NASA’s own launch range. Ms. Fitzpatrick also has experience as a Branch Head for the Guidance, Navigation & Control Systems and Mission Systems Engineering Branch at NASA Goddard and as a project manager for the Wallops Range, leading and directing range operations on many suborbital sounding rocket missions, and ELV missions, including Antares to the ISS and missions to the Moon. Shannon began her career with the US Navy, serving as an Aerospace Engineer working on rocket propulsion systems, including hypersonic system development and systems utilized on the Space Shuttle, as well as doing aeronautical testing on Navy aircraft. She holds several patents in hypersonic propulsion technology from her time with the Navy. She then moved into private industry and developed her project management skills leading large teams of engineers developing rocket Attitude Control Systems for the critical national priority of the Missile Defense Agency’s Standard Missile 3.

Invited by: Paul van Susante

Additional Details

Location

Address

  • Hasnaa Hossam Asham Allah M Abo Shosha
  • Amey Hukkeri

2 people added

User Activity

No recent activity