Reeve Ingle...

About Me

Shuttle Cockpit

I grew up in Carrollton, Georgia, and am currently a junior at Georgia Tech. I am majoring in electrical engineering and plan on graduating in the spring of 2008. I have always enjoyed math and science, so I figured that engineering would be the way to go. I have many interests and am involved in many different organizations at Georgia Tech: Student Government, IEEE, Connect with Tech, and Christian Campus Fellowship to name a few. I love the outdoors, and most of my hobbies relove around the outdoors. My favorite hobby by far is backpacking, but I also love skiing, rock climbing, running, biking, kayaking, and all kinds of sports. I have completed four co-op tours at Johnson Space Center, and my fifth and final tour is planned for the summer of 2007.

Reeve on the SCOUT Rover

Becoming a Co-op

Ever since I started at Georgia Tech, I knew I wanted to co-op, but I did not know where. Participating in the co-op program adds one more year of college, but the work experience gained can be invaluable. Georgia Tech has a great co-op program with many different companies. For about six weeks in the middle of each semester, many companies come to Tech to interview potential co-ops. After interviewing with several different companies, I noticed that NASA was coming to interview, and I managed to get the last interview slot. Several weeks after my interview, I received an offer, and now, here I am in Houston working for NASA.

Cave in Big Bend National Park

Working at NASA

During my first co-op tour at JSC, and I worked in the Mission Operations Directorate - Cargo Operations Branch (DO5). Cargo Ops was a great place to start out at JSC because I got to work on both station and shuttle projects and have developed a broad knowledge base of the space program at JSC. The Cargo Ops Branch supports both a shuttle flight controller, the Assembly Checkout Officer, and a station flight controller, the Cargo Integration Officer, which gave me the opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects. My projects ranged from International Space Station projects such as developing electrical system drawings of the Japanese Experiment Module to working in MCC and supporting Sims for Return-to-Flight of the shuttle. I gathered specifications and wrote a training document for a new cargo bag, the M-03 bag, which was flown for the first time on STS-114. I also trained to become an Inventory Stowage Officer, which is a back-room flight controller that supports the Cargo Integration Officer. Because my group works closely with the Russian Space Agency, I had the opportunity to take Russian classes.

During my second co-op tour in the fall of 2005, I worked in the Avionic Systems Division - Systems Analysis and Verification Branch (EV7). This branch conducts testing and research in the Electronic Systems Test Lab (ESTL), which is an 18,500 square-foot lab dedicated to testing space vehicle communications equipment. My main project was to research, design, and test a multipath fading simulator, which is basically a reverberation chamber used to test wireless equipment, such as bluetooth, WLAN, and radios. I also got a chance to do some soldering to fix a newly-designed buffer box that was not working properly. Another project was the testing of a digital, software-defined radio. This project was particularly interesting in that it required me to explore the mathematics behind FM and PM modulation, aliasing, and digital FM (FSK) decoding techniques. Aside from all of the interesting projects I worked on, I also got the chance to attend LabVIEW and Linux training classes, which will both be very helpful to me in my future schooling. I also had the job of co-op webmaster during my first two co-op tours, which involved keeping this website up-to-date and learning ASP and SQL scripting languages to develop a new online co-op housing guide.

My third co-op tour was in the Automation, Robotics, and Simulation Division – Intelligent Systems Branch (ER2) during the summer of 2006. My projects in this branch were centered around a Lunar/Martian testbed rover called SCOUT. My first major project was to troubleshoot an RF interference problem with several of the wireless systems onboard SCOUT. After using a spectrum analyzer to create an RF spectrum map of SCOUT, I was able to isolate the source of the RF interference, and I fixed the problem by installing bandpass filters on SCOUT’s wireless systems. My second project was the development of a dashboard display unit for SCOUT which displays the vehicle’s speed, distance traveled, battery voltages, temperature, and emergency-stop status. This was a great start-to-finish project which gave me hands-on experience with every aspect of the design process – researching parts, machining the box in the machine shop, designing and laying out a circuit board, wiring and installing the final components, and testing the completed system. I also had the opportunity to travel with the SCOUT team to Meteor Crater, Arizona for two weeks to support integrated field tests. This was a great experience for me to support real-time field test operations alongside the other robotics (Centaur, Athlete, and K-10) and space suit teams.

I returned to EV7 and the Electronic Systems Test Lab for my fourth co-op tour in the fall of 2006. Apart from supporting and observing tests in the Electronic Systems Test Lab (which included the first ever downlink of high definition video from the ISS), my two major projects involved the mathematical calculation of the Fourier series components of an FSK modulated square wave and research of Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6). Having previously worked in this branch, I was able to quickly jump right in on my projects. Shortly after finishing the Fourier series calculation, a test came up in the lab which required the results of my project. It was very rewarding to see the results of my project be put to use.

Mark and Reeve at Game 3 of the World Series Astros vs. White Sox

Social Life

One of my biggest concerns about moving to Houston was leaving all my friends back at college, but I soon discovered how awesome all the other NASA co-ops were and quickly made many new friends. There are activities going on almost every night of the week, and I haven't had time to even think about being bored. I play on a co-op softball and soccer team and play ultimate frisbee with co-ops every Sunday. I have been rock climbing, gone bowling, played broom ball, completed an advanced SCUBA diving class, gone camping and hiking with co-ops in Big Bend National Park, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, and Carlsbad Caverns, attended the first World Series game ever in Texas, and gone on several trips with co-ops. I have met many great friends and have had an incredible experience! If you are debating about whether to co-op or not, do it! It is something you will never regret.

Working at NASA has been one of the greatest experiences of my life and has been well-worth the later graduation. I am looking forward to my future tours at JSC. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at gtg706r@mail.gatech.edu.

Climbing Guadalupe Mountain, the Highest Peak in Texas

Reeve, Ariane, Marlon, and Kate in front of the Shuttle Mock-up