Submitting to the onerous drudgery of IKONOS satellite operations for almost nine years was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it was easy. OTOH, it was boring. Sure, learning the new system and meeting new people was fun for the first couple of years. But after that it settled into a never-changing routine of mind-numbing repetition. Integration engineering on the SBIRS program is a night and day difference – interesting, fast-paced and actually fun for someone with the inclination to do it.
SBIRS is an incredibly complex system of systems. So much so, it almost defies comprehension, to me at least. As such, helping to integrate the bits and pieces to form a seamless product we can use to effectively exploit this amazing ISR asset for our national command authorities and warfighters can obviously be a challenging endeavor. It’s important work and still early in the new environment for me, but I’m already certain I’m going to like it much better.
The best part for me so far is just having the opportunity to work with a larger, more diverse group. Sitting in a room full of computers with one or two other guys for hours on end babysitting a little space-faring camera robot gets old real quick. This program should not have that drawback.