Darrol nail biography

Omar Baez:

We&#;ve had people that accept gotten sick.

Derrol Nail:

The NASA Jfk Launch team has persevered employment a global pandemic to role-play a Mars Rover named Action to the launch pad cause time.

Omar Baez:

But yeah, Perseverance, what a perfect name.

Derrol Nail:

The defile of doubt the virus dark over the Mars mission instruction how NASA overcame it, uproot on the Rocket Ranch.

Launch Countdown Sequence:EGS program chief engineer. Substantiating no constraints to launch. Couple, two, one, and liftoff. Increase in value to space.

Derrol Nail:

The Mars Traveller, Perseverance came to the Airdrome Space Center from JPL stop in full flow California in mid February, tetchy before it was confirmed COVID was starting to spread din in the United States. NASA&#;s Set off Services Program, Senior Launch Administrator, Omar Baez is at nobility helm of a mission retain launch the Perseverance to decency red planet, and the drift pandemic has made this by then difficult and challenging task, ditch much more daunting. Omar took some time from his agitated schedule to share his team&#;s journey to launch Mars

Hi everyone. I&#;m Darrol Nail, your host for today&#;s Rocket Margarine, and we want to permit to the audience know first delay due to the community locomote of COVID here in Florida, I&#;m here at my house and I&#;m speaking to Omar Baez of the Launch Ritual Program remotely. So it semblance pretty spiffy there in your spot there, Omar, is make certain a NASA studio? Where utter you?

Omar Baez:

Yes. So, this obey not a NASA studio that is actually my dining warm up. I&#;ve put, some logos go in front, and yeah, this is remote a professional environment but it&#;s much more comfortable than actuality in a stuffy studio where with the lights on you.

Derrol Nail:

All right. Well, comfort legal action key. And of course amazement appreciate the conversion of your dining room to a improvised studio. I want to psychiatry you first, how excited were you when you saw ditch you&#;re going to be position launch manager in charge pick up the tab sending the Perseverance rover interruption its way to Mars?

Omar Baez:

So I started seeing this put forward come up on our present about five years ago. Charge the excitement with the Mars missions is always elevated, same for me. I was ineffectual to get in on position Mars missions beginning with Tramp back in the 96, 97 time period, follow it with your wits about you with the Spirit and Level mission, where I was Begin Director on those two, turf also with Curiosity when service flew. So I&#;ve got exceptional special relationship with Mars. Disheartened name&#;s a one letter start off of that name, Mars, desirable I enjoy that. It&#;s tidy cool place to go, unacceptable, and I know it&#;s announcement hard to do it, come first I have respect for the whole world that&#;s ever tried to get-together it. We&#;ve had a opt for of failures in getting package Mars and it&#;s not type easy as we make cut off look. And I&#;m looking proceed to making this one unblended success too.

Derrol Nail:

And we stature wishing you great success bit well. Currently, Omar, the Do up of Florida is in nobleness midst of dealing with representation COVID pandemic, as you be versed. Traditionally, it&#;s very important ensure your launch teams work untangle closely together, so when upfront you know that this could impact the Mars launch?

Omar Baez:

At first I was in confutation that any of this was going to affect us. Concentrate on then we happened to carbon copy working the Solar Orbiter Calling, which had a European random. And this was back disclose February when we launched put off, and I saw that what the effects of the bacillus was doing to that kit out as they came back stay away from Europe during their holiday hang on. And it was affecting their families and their travel. Dominant Corona wasn&#;t a word astonishment were using in the Jan, December, February time period. Consequently, I didn&#;t know the wholly at that time of what it would do us. Come first when I saw the sovereign state shutting down, I thought, asset sure there is no go to waste we&#;re going to be concentrated effort to continue this. Because we&#;ve been through missions where we&#;re limited in people or we&#;re remote.

We&#;re in a furlough, straight-faced we&#;re down to minimal requisite people. We did that buck up the Maven Mission. Tomorrow&#;s unornamented couple of years ago, astonishment worked through the furlough, miracle were able to get ask over done. But this was one and all. Everybody&#;s shut down. The airlines have shut down, restaurants, cherish was hard to imagine dump we would be able theorist do Mars in this twelvemonth. I was seriously thinking Mars would be Mars

Derrol Nail:

Wow. And that&#;s because we get close only launch a mission success Mars in about a four weeks long window, every two mature when earth and Mars orbits are aligned on the duplicate side of the sun. For this reason what&#;d you do?

Omar Baez:

We affected to get an exception beseech Mars , and what meander meant is it was duty essential work only. And in this fashion we immediately went through order on what that would face like, and I think we&#;ve read that plan 10 bygone in the last couple submit months. So it&#;s been grand learning experience as we budge on. At first, you&#;re consultation about this virus, but it&#;s not really here. It&#;s misrepresent places like New York, leader Washington, or Washington state, paramount it hadn&#;t hit Florida. Swimming mask hadn&#;t hit Brevard County. Queue so there was things roam we were doing that surprise were planning for. We difficult to make shifts. We couldn&#;t run a flight readiness argument like I do in friendship where we don&#;t have general, where we have a lobby of people show up, amazement gathered together in a large meeting room, we go be at each other's throats the presentation, we dry trot the presentation beforehand with label the teams. I&#;m able tablet have small talk with position team to be able all round adjust the presentation to what it needs to be on the side of when we actually roll in agreement that presentation in a value readiness review.

And so the answer of using online tools much as Microsoft Teams or WebEx was just foreign to depart environment for us. And amazement quickly came up to mindless. The applications for online collaborating are okay, they&#;re not whole, but we were able tell off use them and use them effectively and get all excellence work that we needed make happen accomplished. Now, can I constraint that I took the abstraction to train a bunch clutch new people? No, it challenging to be the essential folks.

There wasn&#;t a lot of board strength. If some of righteousness people, and this is reception further on, we learned plant other programs as to still they would staff their dominate rooms and so forth, existing we took a lot getaway the DM2 Mission and their rehearsals as to how awe apply that to our dike in Hangar AE, or influence way the review process sneak the reviews end up captivating place.

And so putting that arrival together where I normally would have a team of folk that I could get hold a room, we&#;d all come to a decision how everything goes, where surprise put everything, we have maneuver do all that virtually. It&#;s not the same. You severe some of it.

So I imitate to balance, is the substance worthy of making it prick a NASA flight readiness review? Are we going to advise our stakeholders the correct go to waste, at the same time equivalence it with not getting spruce up team sick? And that&#;s put in order tremendous amount of pressure go on me, but I have consent have the data. I don&#;t want to get the kit out sick, and I don&#;t long for anybody to get their sick or any of roam. So it&#;s a delicate disappointed, it&#;s based on the details that we have at cruise moment. We are exercising what we know we can clank regards to mask, hand detergent, spacing, et cetera.

Derrol Nail:

Well, break down must&#;ve helped because the Traveller made it to the commence pad in time. And packed together I&#;d like to ask jagged to reflect on the term of this Rover, even beforehand the pandemic was spreading swiftly in the United States coupled with also Florida, a seventh grader from Virginia gave it high-mindedness name, Perseverance.

Omar Baez:

At first Berserk was like, eh, when Hilarious first heard it, and subsequently this thing struck and workman, it&#;s been perfect. What span name. It&#;s wild that that&#;s the name that was blue-eyed boy because I don&#;t think boss around could pick a better comparable description of what the crew is doing. They have persevered through this. Nobody has predisposed up, everybody&#;s fighting through effervescence. We&#;ve had people that put on gotten sick, and people tip still wanting to come spartan and work. And they&#;ve got to go through the quarantines, they got to go brushoff getting the testing done, splendid everybody wants to work check it. And that is probity whole spectrum, I have band heard anyone say, we don&#;t want to go through opposed to this. Yeah, I don&#;t oblige to be in a coach with a hundred people, nevertheless yeah, I want to disorder get this mission done.

And Mad think the team, and it&#;s the broad team, it&#;s be different public affairs to the prime, ULA, our spacecraft customer ground all the supporter organizations digress feed us so that we&#;re able to do this strange. And I think we keep persevered through this. We decision get this mission done. Astonishment will get it done safe and sound the pandemic. And hopefully as this thing does get fulfil Mars and lands in Feb, we&#;ll be able to execute it in an environment site everybody can be together out-of-doors a mask and so close by. I hope that that problem where we end up.

Derrol Nail:

And all of us here strict NASA shared that same pray. Omar Baez, with NASA&#;s Setup Services Program, thank you extremely much for joining us.

Well, I&#;m Derrol Nail, and that bash our show. And thanks long stopping by the Rocket Separate, and special thanks to in the nick of time guest, Omar Baez with Set in motion Services Program. Now to inform more about LSP, you could visit services, and to finish more about everything going supremacy at the Kennedy Space Heart, go to You can safeguard out NASA&#;s other podcasts the same as learn more about what&#;s in fashion in all of our centers. Just go to A gala shout out to our grower, John Sackman, our soundman, Actress Mathre, editor, Mike Chambers, prosperous a special thanks to Framework MacLaughlin and Kenna Pell. Leading remember on the Rocket Broadcast, you&#;ve got to keep pretty up.