Current work
I'm a public servant in the Australian Government.
Prior work
Previously I worked at UNSW Canberra Space where I developed software systems and operator-focused software platforms for various engineering and space related purposes.
I'm also the developer of UNSW Canberra Space' OperationsToolkit: a multi-user, secured cloud-based space mission operator platform. Allows safe communication with our satellites, decoding & processing of received data (telemetry data and image processing) - and also provides 3D orbit propagation visualisation and tracking of satellites in real (or simulated) time.
OperationsToolkit is a user/operator focused web based platform built with modern frameworks/standards and includes a fully developed REST API.
Finally, I also designed and managed the IT infrastructure and DevOps toolchain for around 40 engineers within UNSW Canberra Space.
As a software and user/operator platforms developer, I usually work in various languages (Java, JavaScript, python, CSS, HTML, SQL, JPQL, etc.) and with several frameworks and many libraries.
One such library (which has been very nice to work with) is cesium.js: an open-source JavaScript library we use in some of our platforms to visualise and track satellites (ours and others). See below for a small example of using this js library to track several satellites and estimate their current (and future) positions using an orbit propagator (not part of the cesium.js library, but a propagator is used to generate the data (used below) that cesium.js renders). Here, propagation (for the next 48 hours) is updated every night and cached on one of my servers. On a larger platform (such as the one I develop) we allow on-demand propagation calculation and querying via REST api.
NASA's Charlie Duke and Gerry Griffin visit the team at UNSW Canberra Space
Former NASA astronaut Charlie Duke and NASA Mission Control Flight Director Gerry Griffin sat down with our team (in the ANCDF) and spoke about their roles and experiences as part of the Apollo Program.
I was really impressed with how down-to-earth (pun?) they were. Very approachable and very relaxed as they spoke frankly about the Apollo program, how the incredible was achieved, what obstacles they ran into (note: there were lots...), and what we can take away from their experiences.
They then had a look around our facilities, and even signed our next satellite. Many thanks to Charlie and Gerry for taking the time to speak with us.
You can read more about Charlie and Gerry, and their visit to us here.
Australian National Concurrent Design Facility (ANCDF)
I was the technical architect (IT, AV, software systems) for the Australian National Concurrent Design Facility (ANCDF) located at UNSW Canberra (ADFA). The ANCDF is Australia's first Space Mission Planning Concurrent Design Facility.
I designed and implemented the tech infrastructure for the facility which was officially opened on the 27th of November 2017 by ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr.
You can read more about the ANCDF here.
Note: you can see me (very) briefly at 21 seconds at the back before I return to monitoring the systems I implemented (the day before) and controlling room displays via our network-based display system.
UNSW Canberra Space's first CubeSat Satellite Launch
After scrubbing the two previous launches due to launch check anomalies and upper level winds, the Delta II rocket carrying UNSW Canberra Space's first satellite "Buccaneer" was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base California on the 18th November 2017.
Previous Work
Some samples of previous work, particularly some of the simulation systems I've developed and worked on:
Developed in Java using Eclipse + Anylogic (my preferred IDEs for OO/Agent-based simulation) and uses own developed class libraries for the heavy computational aspects (like vessel and tidal scheduling) and other libraries (like JFreeChart) for some of the custom visualisations (see charting window at around 1:05 mins into video).
Developed in Unity / C# using the Unity and Visual Studio IDEs.
Worked on this with the fantastic developers at The Simulation Group (I was employed there 2016-2017).