The challenge
A NASA MSFC / Georgia Tech / MIT low-Earth-orbit spacecraft required a high-reliability avionics stack spanning electrical power, flight computing, FPGA-based interfaces, and subsystem integration. The work was not a single board or a single codebase. It was a system-of-systems problem with technical, organizational, and schedule risk intertwined.
The work
I assumed flight-hardware leadership, established the avionics architecture and integration path, and turned fragmented work into an executable plan. This included a fault-tolerant Zynq 7000 multi-board stack, hardware-in-the-loop and flat-sat planning, reproducible development environments, FPGA and embedded workflows, and disciplined subsystem interfaces.
The result and lesson
The program moved from uncertainty toward a credible integration and test path. The larger lesson was that complex technical programs are often saved not by a heroic component, but by making the boundaries, ownership, evidence, and sequence of work explicit.