Kim Simpson Email & Phone Number

Pasadena, California, United States

Provide review, assessment, analysis, and design support for selected technical areas, including programmatic and business management oversight and support of all aspects JPL’s HLS Program support.

The JPL Technical Standards Program Center Representative assists in fulfilling the JPL Chief Engineer’s role in providing technical leadership on review and approval of NASA's Technical Standards and Handbooks — both for in-house design/development and in review of contractor proposals. Support includes providing NASA programs and projects with uniform engineering and technical requirements. Engineering standards capture lessons learned and new technology, provide a common base for interoperability, and facilitate engineering excellence.

Caltech/ Jpl

Lead NESC-sponsored independent assessments of human exploration crew and launch vehicle cross-program architectures specifically in the areas of the Commercial Crew, Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), Space Launch System (SLS) and Ground Systems Development & Operations (GSDO) programs. Conduct detailed analysis of system avionics architectures, test configurations and verification and validation plans.

Provide technical expertise to support NESC V&V assessments and capture and share knowledge to improve the Agency’s ability to perform V&V on programs and projects.

Caltech/Jpl

Perform technical leadership and system engineering of complex system architectures which have national significance to NASA. Through extensive use of model-based system engineering techniques have demonstrated an increase in affordability, achieved interoperability within and amongst program/ projects, centers and external partners, trained multiple users on the benefits of model-based system engineering, improved product quality and enhanced the ability to achieve mission success. Effectively apply the fundamental engineering theory of model-centric engineering and considered an Agency resource in this area. Provide stewardship of the system engineering discipline, in particular model-centric system engineering and train and mentor junior engineers to ensure that the stewardship is carried forward to new technology advances in system engineering.

Flight Test Management Office Network Integration lead responsible for the integration, test and certification of the NASA portion of the Exploration Flight Test 1 ground system. Led an extended virtual team of ~50 engineers across JPL, other NASA Centers and Lockheed Martin. Extensively used a new system engineering approach that made effective use of computer aided models and simulation tools so the team was able to adapt and extend the model-based system engineering approach to the task of architecting the Orion EFT-1 integrated network. The approach was very effective in identifying errors and gaps in the interfaces and communication protocols between the various systems. This new capability allowed the team to automatically produce both rigorous engineering and management reports that were clear and concise and was effectively used to perform the task of verifying and validating the integrated network through the generation of comprehensive V&V reports.

Managed Level 2 Software & Avionics Integration Office (SAVIO) Integrated Products Engineering group consisting of engineers from multiple NASA centers (JSC, LaRC, GSFC). Key responsibilities included leading system level trade studies, including technical oversight/ management of all studies in support of program design analysis cycles. Responsible for the program-level End-to-End information system technical baseline and technical performance measures (TPMs).

Led JPL's contribution to the development of the Constellation Program Command, Control, Communications & Information (C3I) operational architecture and provide cross-cutting operations oversight. Provide technical oversight to all JPL-led C3I studies.

Responsible for the development and design of the SIM end-to-end information and operational systems. Technical designs incorporated instrument, spacecraft, operational and science data/software interfaces between JPL, Caltech science operations center and one industrial partner. Led project level system trade studies in support of operations concept and requirements maturation activities.Led JPL spacecraft system engineer. Responsible for development of all level 3 spacecraft requirements to be included in phase C/D RFP. Cognizant of all science/project system requirements impacting spacecraft design, including pointing stability, thermal and mechanical spacecraft/instrument interface requirements. Led test bed activities to align spacecraft simulator and system test bed development/delivery schedule with integration needs. Worked top 10 technical issues and developed mitigation plans.

Managed operations budget and mission operations system design, development and test effort. Accountable for all software and hardware ground system development and mission system engineering supporting Europa Orbiter.

Led ground data system design and implementation supporting the Mars Global Surveyor, Mars '98 Orbiter/Lander, Stardust and Genesis spacecraft. Designed and implemented improved software test and delivery process. Managed implementation and integration of the flight operations test bed.

Managed delivery of enhanced ground system supporting Galileo low-gain antenna operations. Led workforce of 25, consisting of analysis, software, hardware and test engineers.

Designed, developed and delivered planetary radar software and Galileo telemetry processing software to the Deep Space Network