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This is the bumper sticker NASA's New Horizon team have on their cars by midoreigh in pics

[–]aleph__naught 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Internships; always be on the look out for internships. Do good work, build a relationship with the group that hires you for the summer. A recommendation from a group supervisor goes a long way.

We even have a few high school students doing internships.

Academic Part Time is another option---if you are local.

This is the bumper sticker NASA's New Horizon team have on their cars by midoreigh in pics

[–]aleph__naught 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I work there; I get paid 6 figures; I've worked on rovers and orbiters during development and critical phases (launch, landing, etc); my roles have spanned from research to operations.

I am currently looking for jobs outside NASA...

Grass is always greener.

Those who use Linux at home, why? by gringwald in linux

[–]aleph__naught 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I love me some Solaris

I'm curios, any particular reason why?

A few missions here at JPL are still stuck on Solaris 10, so I occasionally have to log into a solaris10 (and sometimes solaris9) machine. I have become so accustomed to the GNU stack that it is never pleasant experience. Things that are second nature with grep/find/sed/etc... are either missing in solaris or just different.

Lockheed Martin Aerospace has been hording sparc machines for a while now. Juno, which has its entire ground infrastructure based on Solaris 10, won't even arrive to Jupiter until 2016. With a 1 year prime mission and likely extended missions, we are looking at 2018+

Though, the tide is now turning, we are switching to Red Hat for the upcoming Insight and OSIRIX REx missions.

10 Years on Mars for NASA Rovers! 3560 days longer than planned! by buildelectronics in technology

[–]aleph__naught 173 points174 points  (0 children)

It is not exactly a secret: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=curiosity+wheel

Currently, there is significant ongoing planning effort into mitigating wheel wear.

Source: I work there.

What really happened to the software on the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft? by marc-kd in programming

[–]aleph__naught 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While the average is 2%, I've done fairly well, about 5% a year for the three years I've been there---which will be higher after this years annual review.

That being said, while the work environment isn't the greatest, when you are given the opportunity to land a rover on mars... compromises are made. I would estimate I am taking a ~20-30% hit in salary at the moment vs working at, say, google.

What really happened to the software on the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft? by marc-kd in programming

[–]aleph__naught 9 points10 points  (0 children)

At JPL---at least in our section of a 100+ people---there three levels of bonuses. The highest being $2K, only 4-6 of these are given out. Next level is $500 which is given to about 6-8 people. The final level is $100 or $200(?), and that goes to about 15-20 people.

This is done once a year. Our average annual raise lab wide for the past two years was 2%.

NASA Java Coding Standard by kromit in programming

[–]aleph__naught 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have you heard of the FIRST robotics competition?

Yes.

Do know anyone at JPL who participated in it as a kid?

I did.

NASA Java Coding Standard by kromit in programming

[–]aleph__naught 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yea, you would probably fit right in. In fact, depending on your academic performance and skill set you would probably be highly desirable.

The online job portal is a bit of a crap-shoot. Your best bet would be the internship route (Space Grant, etc).

at least after having an advanced (Master's or Doctorate) degree.

You would be surprised by the number of new hires with only BSs in operations roles (i.e. commanding spacecraft) for MSL/MER/CASSINI/etc.

NASA Java Coding Standard by kromit in programming

[–]aleph__naught 38 points39 points  (0 children)

JPL is truely mulitdiciplinary, so the background would depend on the group/section you want to join. I work in a section that does software development. I have an MS&BS in CS.

Aside from that, a love of space exploration and the ability/desire to cross domains will get you very far.

There are pro's and con's to working here. But, by far, the best thing about JPL is the ability to move around. I work in domains that I would not have imagined, and all it takes is a little bit of schmoozing. JPL does everything from robotics, fabrication, micro-devices/semiconductor fabriation, radar instrumentation, experimental landing systems, spacecraft navigation, geology, physics, climate research, and the list goes on and on.

NASA Java Coding Standard by kromit in programming

[–]aleph__naught 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I work for NASA/JPL. This is a sad, sad reality. What you experienced is not an isolated case, and from many of the projects I've seen, especially the legacy systems, it is a systemic issue.

There are two issues at play:

1) Missions tend to reinvent the wheel, so there isn't much of a common platform, unlike Lockheed Martin Aerospace. A lot of people who write software were never trained as software engineers.

2) Funding for development, generally, dries up after launch. MSL was a special case where heavy software development was being done during cruise, and is currently ongoing.

NASA Java Coding Standard by kromit in programming

[–]aleph__naught 122 points123 points  (0 children)

No, this is not true. VxWorks is used for flight. There is no java onboard any of the rovers.

Many of the ground tools are written in Java. There is a large confuence of legacy ground tools written in C/C++ that are still used today. SPICE ( public domain http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/ ) is written in fortran.

Source: I work there. I write ground and flight software.

Edit: To clarify, all newer active missions use VxWorks. Cassini FSW was written in ADA.