The Work of a Test Information Engineer
Author:
Kiara SgantasMentor:
Monica Hoffman, Test Information Engineer, NASA: Dryden Flight Research CenterTest Information Engineers (TIE) ensure the software and data requirements needed for real-time mission support are gathered, provide support during a flight test mission, and validate post-flight data products to make sure researchers obtain the critical data for the advancement of their research. As a TIE intern, my job mimicked the duties required of a TIE. One TIE duty transpires during pre-mission build up, which my TIE mentor and I communicated and negotiated data and display requirements with the various people associated with a project and kept them all updated in the latest developments and changes for upcoming flight tests. In real-time mission support, we checked that all of the required systems were fully functional and contained all essential programs for test gathering. We also monitored the real-time missions and ensured the quality of the data collected during the tests. Following the mission, we performed post-flight processing, where we made the gathered data available to the project’s associates and generated change requests detailing any required changes for the next flight test. The work I did as a TIE trainee was to help make flight tests run smoothly and efficiently, thereby giving researchers the beneficial information they needed to continue their work.