Peter Hess Email & Phone Number

Greater Los Angeles Area

Deputy Technical Lead of all aspects of design, analysis, build, test, and operations of Atlas and Delta launch vehicles. Evaluation of hardware, analysis, and processes against industry standards and best practice, particularly in identifying and pursuing cross-discipline impacts of design or operational changes, nonconforming conditions, crossover assessments, or other potential mission risks. Responsible for gathering technical expertise from across the enterprise to direct and provide mission assurance assessments to government customers. On-console liaison between leadership and technical team, responsible for providing rapid assessments in launch-critical situations. Pre-launch and post-flight team leadership for efficient, thorough provision of mission status and risk assessment to customer and executive teams. Additional duties include program management for independent verification and validation of complex development programs (e.g. avionics/software/launch base block upgrade), and identification and implementation of program-wide efficiency measures.

El Segundo, Ca

Structural and Propulsion Systems Engineer on medium- and heavy-class launch vehicles for advanced payloads. Technical lead responsible for mission assurance of actuators, mechanisms, separation systems, and thrust-vector control. Pneumatic systems and pressure vessels. Structural testing and analysis. Fatigue/fracture testing and analysis. Separation analysis. Qualification of flight hardware. On-console support of launch and test operations. Management of a team of experts for detailed analysis and assessment of hardware. Certification of new entrants for launching National Security Space payloads. Risk assessment of design, qualification, manufacturing, engineering changes, nonconforming conditions, and any other aspects of cradle-to-grave launch vehicle design and operations. Cognizance of best-practice industry standards within areas of expertise.

El Segundo, Ca

Launch vehicle process flow, manufacturing, and anomaly resolution. Ground support equipment, ground command, control, and communications, infrastructure. Systems engineering of launch vehicle, space vehicle, and ground systems. Launch site processing, integration, and testing. Span and cost reduction.Evaluation of a myriad of systems, their interfaces and interactions: cryogenics, pneumatics, thermal conditioning, structures, propellants, hydraulics, power, computer hardware/software, water, mechanisms, mass spectrometry, ordnance, and others.Management of a support team of technical specialists to assist on data analysis, anomaly identification/resolution, and design evaluation.

El Segundo, Ca

El Segundo, Ca

Structural Materials Section, Materials Science Department, Space Materials Laboratory. Specialties in launch vehicle and spacecraft metallurgy; metallic coatings, plating, joining techniques, mechanical testing of materials and structures, corrosion, heat treating, welding.Research: bulk metallic glasses, electrolysis/combustion actuators, boron carbide, Pb-free solder, adhesion of coatings.

Structural Materials Section, Materials Science Department, Space Materials Laboratory.

Dissertation Title: Fatigue crack growth of bulk metallic glasses. Advisor Professor Reinhold Dauskardt.

Summer Undergraduate Research Project program; worked under Professor Jack Lesko to design, construct, and test CFRP/GFRP bridge connection system.

Failure Analysis Engineer for turbine blades, GE Aircraft Engines, Lynn, MA

Ph.D., M.S., Materials Science

B.S., Materials Engineering