Preparing for the operations phase of a mission is a lot more challenging than it sounds. What information will help me understand the state of the entire spacecraft? What risks might we need to mitigate? What do we need to train people to operate this spacecraft so they can detect anomalies and help resolve them? And how do we organize all of this for a system with a lot of moving parts?

This episode features a conversation with Ernest Cisneros on mission operations and how we prepare ahead of time to make this as smooth as possible. Ernest has a background in Systems Engineering and System & Network Administration, and he has supported operations for several instruments at ASU. A few of which include the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter cameras (LROC), Mastcam on the Curiosity Rover, Mastcam-Z on the Perseverance Rover, and the hyperspectral cameras on the Psyche Spacecraft, which is slated to launch in 2022 to journey to a metal asteroid named Psyche, where scientists hope to learn more about the origin of planetary cores.