Goddard Engineering and Technology Directorate

Carissa Arillo: Testing Spacecraft, Penning the Owner’s Manuals

Carissa Arillo sits at a table with a monitor and a keyboard, wearing a headset. She smiles at the camera. On the screen is code, but it isn't clearly visible. She is wearing a long sleeve dark colored shirt with the NASA worm logo across the front in red. She has long, brown hair and wears glasses.
Carissa M. Arillo is a flight operations engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Photo courtesy of Carissa Arillo

Flight operations engineer Carissa Arillo helped ensure one of the instruments on NASA’s PACE mission made it successfully through its prelaunch testing. She and her group also documented the work rigorously, to ensure the flight team had a comprehensive manual to keep this Earth-observing satellite in good health for the duration of its mission.

Name: Carissa M. Arillo
Formal Job Classification: Flight Operations Engineer
Organization: Environmental Test Engineering and Integration Branch (Code 549)

What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard?

I developed pre-launch test procedures for the HARP-2 instrument for the Phytoplankton, Aerosol, Cloud and Ecosystem (PACE) Mission. HARP-2 is a wide angle imaging polarimeter designed to measure aerosol particles and clouds, as well as properties of land and water surfaces.

I also developed the flight operations routine and contingency procedures that governed the spacecraft after launch. It is interesting to think about how to design procedures that can sustain the observatory in space for the life of the mission so that the flight operations team that inherits the mission will have a seamless transition.

What is your educational background?

In 2019, I got a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. I am currently pursuing a master’s in robotics there as well.

Why did you become an engineer?

I like putting things together and understanding how they work. After starting my job at NASA Goddard, I became interested in coding and robotics.

How did you come to Goddard?

After getting my undergraduate degree, I worked at General Electric Aviation doing operations management for manufacturing aircraft engines. When I heard about an opening at Goddard, I applied and got my current position.

What was involved in developing pre-launch test procedures for the HARP-2 instrument?

I talked to the instrument manufacturer, which is a team from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and asked them what they wanted to confirm works every time we tested the instrument. We kept in constant communication while developing these test procedures to make sure we covered everything. The end product was code that was part of the comprehensive performance tests, the baseline tests throughout the prelaunch test campaign. Before, during, and after each prelaunch environmental test, we perform such a campaign. These prelaunch environmental tests include vibration, thermal (hot and cold), acoustic and radio frequency compatibility (making sure that different subsystems do not interfere with each other’s).

What goes through your head in developing a flight operations procedure for an instrument?

I think about a safe way of operating the instrument to accomplish the goals of the science team. I also think about not being able to constantly monitor the instrument. Every few hours, we can communicate with the instrument for about five to 10 minutes. We can, however, recover all the telemetry for the off-line time.

When we discover an anomaly, we look at all the history that we have and consult with our contingency procedures, our failure review board and potentially the instrument manufacturer. Together we try to figure out a recovery…

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