An Astrophysicist in Space Operations

Nikolai von Krusenstiern.

Portrait of Nikolai von Krusenstiern

Space operations. Science. Creative connections.

Connecting people matters to me beyond work and music.
I’m a husband, father of two young women,
and an active member of the wider Krusenstiern family.

Explore the portfolio

Current

Activities

WhenGroupRoleActivity
MusicParticipantRitmo con Señas Masterclass in Rome w/ Santiago Vázquez
PersonalWalked the Camino Portugués de la Costa with my Wife
today (DOY 299)
PersonalJakobsweg ab Dijon mit Stefan
MusicOrganizing TeamFolk Marathon Tübingen
WorkTeam LeadXMM: Main Tank Replenishing (MTR) Campaign 2027
WorkSole DeveloperINTEGRAL: Build RACPs Situational awareness tool

Experience & Interests

Portfolio

On-board Hardware and S/W Development

In Orbit

  • HEPI — INTEGRAL instrument hardware (FPGA/ASIC) 1996–1998

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    Role — hardware design and development, submitted as a diploma thesis

    Goal — turn the raw photon stream of IBIS into usable science data by preprocessing every detected event on board.

    Implementation — HEPI, an ASIC developed at the University of Tübingen for the gamma-ray imaging instrument aboard ESA’s INTEGRAL satellite.

    IBIS observes with two detector planes — ISGRI, a cadmium telluride detector optimised for lower energies, and PICsIT, a caesium iodide scintillator detector for higher energies — covering roughly 15 keV to 10 MeV. HEPI interfaces with both planes, processing individual photon events, synchronising their timing and identifying coincident events — used to reconstruct photon interactions and improve background rejection.

    During the engineering phase the design ran on FPGAs, allowing the logic to be tested and revised before it was committed to the fixed ASIC. The full development is documented in the diploma thesis (in German), submitted in 1998.

    Term Meaning
    HEPI Hardware Event Preprocessor for IBIS
    IBIS Imager on Board the INTEGRAL Satellite
    INTEGRAL International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory
    ISGRI INTEGRAL Soft Gamma-Ray Imager
    PICsIT PIxellated CsI Telescope
    ASIC Application-Specific Integrated Circuit
    FPGA Field-Programmable Gate Array
    keV/MeV kilo-/mega-electronvolt (photon energy)
    HEPI
    HEPI
  • IASW — INTEGRAL instrument software (Ada) 2002–2009

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    Role — Team Lead, software developer

    Goal — command and monitor the IBIS instrument aboard INTEGRAL and process its science data on board.

    Challenge — the software runs on the DPE, a radiation-tolerant 1750A processor clocked at 13 MHz with only 2 MB of memory.

    Implementation — IASW, developed at the University of Tübingen, runs priority-controlled tasks under CSSW, a preemptive multitasking operating system shared by all INTEGRAL instruments. Besides handling telecommands and housekeeping, most of the processing effort goes into fetching and compressing histogram blocks and evaluating the single-photon events supplied by HEPI — applying loss-free compression, rejecting out-of-view Compton events and distributing the limited telemetry rate between data types according to their priority.

    Fun fact — our team found a bug in TLD’s certified Ada compiler, virtually unheard of for a certified compiler: an edge case in memory management on this particular hardware.

    Term Meaning
    IASW Instrument Application Software
    CSSW Common System Software
    IBIS Imager on Board the INTEGRAL Satellite
    INTEGRAL International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory
    DPE Data Processing Electronics
    1750A MIL-STD-1750A processor architecture
    HEPI Hardware Event Preprocessor for IBIS
    TLD certified Ada compiler vendor
    Ada programming language
    DPE
    DPE
  • CDMU — XMM-Newton main computer patch (Ada) 2017

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    Role — sole Ada developer

    Goal — enable the MTR aboard XMM-Newton by allowing the hydrazine to be cooled to the lower B-Side temperature limits.

    Challenge — reaching those limits means switching off the A-Side hardware LTP, deliberately sacrificing a layer of hardware redundancy — justified only because the alternative is an even higher risk, and only when compensated as far as possible by other means such as procedures, monitoring and software patches.

    Implementation — a CDMU software patch, applied in orbit, extends the existing TDC/TCL patch to protect the state of the HLCLs in software, partly compensating for the reduced hardware redundancy.

    Term Meaning
    MTR Main Tank Replenishment
    CDMU Central Data Management Unit
    HLCL Heater Latching Current Limiter
    LTP Low-Temperature Protection
    HTP High-Temperature Protection
    TDC Thermal Duty Cycle
    TCL Thermal Control Loop
    Ada programming language
    MCR Main Control Room

Principal Spacecraft Operations Engineer

Operations

  • SOE — Spacecraft Operations Engineer 2009–now

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    Role — Principal Spacecraft Operations Engineer SOE

    Context — an astrophysicist by education, working as a member of the XMM-Newton FCT in ESA’s OPS-OAX department — everything in this section is part of that day job.

    Term Meaning
    SOE Spacecraft Operations Engineer
    XMM-Newton X-ray Multi-Mirror satellite
    FCT Flight Control Team
    ESA European Space Agency
    OPS-OAX ESA operations department — XMM-Newton
  • MTR — Main Tank Replenishing (Ada, Fortran 77, Jython) 2015–now

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    MTR (Main Tank Replenishing)

    Role — Team Lead, Main Developer

    Goal — keep the thrusters firing before the main tank runs dry by moving the fuel remaining in XMM-Newton’s other tanks — unusable by design — into tank 1: a week of special operations each year, a tank-to-tank transfer never foreseen for a satellite built for a ten-year life.

    Challenge — no one had ever shifted fuel between tanks of this design on a satellite in orbit, so the procedures had to be developed anew, with changes at every level.

    Implementation — on-board software patched in Ada, new DP computed in Fortran 77, and new TC; extensive automation designed and validated in MOIS and Jython to support the intensive manual operation, followed by five days of FCT simulations in the Main Control Room at ESOC, with advice from Airbus and the fuel system’s now-retired designer. Together with an orbit-control change that cut fuel consumption to under two kilograms a year, the yearly MTR keeps XMM-Newton flying into its third decade.

    Special operation — once a year, a week of special operations pumps about 400 g of hydrazine from the auxiliary tanks (AT2–AT4) into the main tank (MT1). It has to happen in summer: with Earth farthest from the Sun, solar illumination drops by about 15%, which helps cool the three auxiliary tanks as cold as possible, while MT1 is heated as hot as possible — and a dedicated attitude keeps the Sun off the ATs as much as possible.

    In the beginning this took six people in twelve-hour and longer shifts around the clock for five days and nights. The automation has since cut the manual work down to three points: the start; confirming double ground-station coverage for the critical phase, when no hydrazine is available in MT1; and the return to the operational configuration after the thermal stability phase following the gas transfer. It also pauses itself whenever a TC gap occurs, such as during ground-station handovers.

    Fun fact — Before the first MTR campaign, we ran a Simulation campaign under the full LEOP protocol, with the integrated XMM-Newton and INTEGRAL FCT together in the MCR: It validated the end-to-end changes and preparations for the MTR, trained the FCT, and showcased the resulting procedures — spanning hardware, software, and operational changes — to industry. Side effect: team building.

    Term Meaning
    MTR Main Tank Replenishment
    MCR Main Control Room
    FCT Flight Control Team
    XMM-Newton X-ray Multi-Mirror satellite
    AT auxiliary tank
    MT main tank
    G/S ground station
    DP derived parameter
    TC telecommand
    MOIS Manufacturing and Operations Information System
    ESOC European Space Operations Centre
    INTEGRAL International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory
    LEOP launch and early orbit phase
    Ada programming language
    Fortran 77 programming language
    Jython Python implementation for the JVM
    XMM MTR Simulation Campaign
    MTR simulation in the MCR, 2016
  • NRT: Telemetry Analysis (Python) 2022–2023

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    Role — Sole Developer

    Goal — provide the flight control team with situational awareness on demand.

    Implementation — XMM-Newton stores nothing on board: with 24/7 ground-station coverage its telemetry streams down continuously, and whatever is not looked at on the way down is lost.

    NRT analyses it in near real time, turning housekeeping and instrument parameters into dedicated plots every ten minutes — an automatic, always-ready overview that neither the mission control system nor ad-hoc plots by individual team members provide.

    During the yearly MTR, this lets the team quickly check all related subsystems and follow how each parameter develops over the five days of special operations.

    Term Meaning
    NRT near-real-time
    XMM-Newton X-ray Multi-Mirror satellite
    MTR Main Tank Replenishment
    Python programming language
  • TLgenAssist: Timeline Generation Automation (Python) 2026–2027

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    Role — Sole Developer

    Goal — replace cumbersome clicking through different tools on different machines.

    Implementation — TLgenAssist generates timelines for XMM-Newton and INTEGRAL in seconds from a single command-line call — written in Python.

    A timeline is a file of timed commands, built from prepared flight-dynamics products, that the ground sends automatically — the on-board queue only holds about 200 time-tagged commands.

    The timeline is also the input to MOIS, the tool used for the additional timed operations procedures.

    Term Meaning
    TLgenAssist Timeline Generation Automation
    XMM-Newton X-ray Multi-Mirror satellite
    INTEGRAL International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory
    MOIS Manufacturing and Operations Information System
    Python programming language

Consulting

Technical Support

  • Isofleet & Verimatic GmbH 2008–2013

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    Role — science consultant for several years (since ended)

    Goal — strengthen two small German engineering companies — startups from the ESA business incubator in Darmstadt — with scientific and technical expertise.

    Term Meaning
    ESA European Space Agency
    Isofleet & Verimatic
    Isofleet & Verimatic
  • Mars Express fuel estimation 2013

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    Role — apply a new, independent estimation method

    Goal — plan how long the orbiter can keep flying by tracking how much propellant Mars Express has left — bookkeeping tank pressure, temperature and burn history. NASA needed the answer to know whether Mars Express could serve as a data relay for its surface missions.

    Mars Express, ESA’s first mission to another planet, has orbited Mars since 2003 and is flown from ESOC in Darmstadt.

    Implementation — the method was developed and applied in a dedicated study of the fuel on board — its results later backed up by Boris Yendler’s study Active Propellant Management.

    Term Meaning
    MEX Mars Express
    ESOC European Space Operations Centre
    ESA European Space Agency
    Mars Express
    Mars Express
  • Living Globes 2020–now

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    Role — science and technical consultant

    Goal — let everyone see the whole Earth as astronauts saw it from the Moon — and so reconnect us with the living planet we live on.

    Implementation — the Living Globes Society, a non-profit founded by Sten Linnander (LinkedIn) and advised by an ESA spacecraft-operations engineer, creates digital spheres displaying real-time satellite images for homes, classrooms and public spaces.

    Term Meaning
    Living Globes Society non-profit creating real-time-Earth spheres
    Overview Effect astronauts’ shift in awareness seeing Earth from space
    ESA European Space Agency
    Living Globes
    Living Globes
  • eROSITA operations support 2018

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    Role — operations support

    Goal — support the mission teams’ preparation for launch.

    eROSITA, the main instrument of the Spektrum-Röntgen-Gamma satellite, was launched to an L2 orbit in 2019 to perform the first all-sky survey in the medium X-ray band — mapping galaxy clusters, black holes and the signatures of dark energy.

    Challenge — a year before launch, the eROSITA team at MPE in Munich hit a communication deadlock — astrophysicists and engineers circling a blocking problem in different mental models and wording.

    Implementation — a two-hour workshop of asking questions and rephrasing each side’s answers in the other’s model brought the teams back to mutual understanding.

    Term Meaning
    eROSITA extended ROentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array
    SRG Spektrum-Röntgen-Gamma satellite
    MPE Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics
    L2 second Lagrange point
    eROSITA
    eROSITA

Available — book via Contact.

Volunteering

Non-Profit

  • Tübinger Studentenwerk e.V. (Board Member) 1989–1993

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    Role — board member

    Goal — consolidate the finances of the student-run non-profit, founded in 1920 to provide affordable housing and services, after the former managing director had embezzled more than half a million Deutschmark and lost it at the roulette tables of the Baden-Baden casino.

    Implementation — the board tightened financial oversight while the association recovered; the greater part of the loss was eventually repaid through an advance on the former director’s inheritance. The taz told the whole story in “Der Heimkehrer”: Ali Schmeißner — the 1968 student leader the students had appointed as managing director — fled to Prague on the day his prison sentence was due to start and only returned in 2000, once the offence was time-barred.

    Term Meaning
    Studentenwerk student self-help association, founded 1920
    e.V. eingetragener Verein — registered association
    Geschäftsführer managing director
    Deutschmark Germany’s currency before the euro
  • Flüchtlinge am Werk e.V. (Co-Founder) 2016–2021

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    Role — co-founder

    Goal — make a practical contribution to the integration of refugees — “Taten statt Warten”.

    Implementation — the volunteer association in Kusterdingen/Mähringen works together with refugees, building garden furniture and more in the Farrenstall workshop; it also runs a permaculture school project in Senegal and hosts cultural events on site.

    Term Meaning
    Flüchtlinge am Werk “refugees at work”
    Taten statt Warten “deeds, not waiting” — the association’s motto
    e.V. eingetragener Verein — registered association
    Farrenstall the workshop venue
  • Ritmo con Señas Germany (Founder) 2022–now

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    Role — founder

    Goal — spread the sign-language approach to group improvisation in Germany.

    Implementation — the German branch of the worldwide Ritmo con Señas movement coordinates groups in Tübingen, Berlin and Darmstadt — collaborating nationally and internationally through joint workshops, festivals and exchanges.

    Its website gives groups without a site of their own a public face, letting them announce their workshops and concerts.

    Term Meaning
    Ritmo con Señas “rhythm with signs” — sign-language approach to conducted improvisation
  • KlangFolk e.V. (Board Member) 2023–now

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    Role — board member

    Goal — open music and dance to everyone — whatever their background or skill.

    Implementation — the non-profit association KlangFolk e.V. runs free weekly workshops in Tübingen: TüFolk, an orchestra learning traditional melodies from around the world by ear; Música con Señas, improvisation guided by a sign language; and Balfolk, traditional dances anyone can join. Members range from 16 to 85.

    Term Meaning
    e.V. eingetragener Verein — registered non-profit association
    TüFolk KlangFolk’s Tübingen folk orchestra
    Música con Señas improvisation guided by a sign language
    Balfolk traditional European social dances

Talks · Lectures

Speaking

  • Our Planets — for Kindergarten and Primary-School Audiences

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    Role — workshop leader

    Goal — give the youngest listeners their first tour of our Solar System — a hands-on workshop for kindergarten and primary-school audiences.

    Implementation — held outside, the children become the planets and orbit a central sun, with just one rule: run if you are an inner planet like Mercury, move very, very slowly if you are an outer one like Saturn. Without further explanation they discover that the planets live in a common plane — and that a lot happens among the inner planets while little goes on far outside.

    Term Meaning
    inner planet close to the Sun — Mercury
    outer planet far from the Sun — Saturn
    Nikolai
    Nikolai
  • Kosmologie am Lagerfeuer — General Public

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    Role — speaker and storyteller

    Goal — make cosmology graspable in the oldest lecture format there is — stories told around a campfire, for anyone curious about the universe.

    Implementation — Kosmologie am Lagerfeuer is a series of open-air evenings, each built around a 20–30 minute theme — the four fundamental forces, how our Sun works, neutron stars and black holes — followed by open questions for as long as the fire lasts.

    Term Meaning
    fundamental forces gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear
    neutron star collapsed core of a massive star
    black hole region where nothing escapes gravity
    Nikolai
    Nikolai
  • How does a Black Hole work? — High School Students

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    Role — speaker

    Goal — make black holes understandable for high-school students — a one-hour talk that builds the physics from the ground up.

    Implementation — How does a Black Hole work?: first the four fundamental forces, then the Pauli exclusion principle and angular momentum. From there the life of a star: a molecular cloud collapsing into a protoplanetary disk, the young star igniting and burning on the fusion fires that stabilise it — and finally the collapse, where the mass decides between three routes: a white dwarf for a sun-like star, a neutron star, or a black hole.

    Term Meaning
    fundamental forces gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear
    Pauli exclusion principle no two identical fermions share a quantum state
    protoplanetary disk gas and dust around a forming star
    white dwarf remnant of a sun-like star
    neutron star collapsed core of a massive star
    black hole region where nothing escapes gravity
  • Raumzeit Podcast — Planck 2013

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    Role — interview guest

    Goal — share how an ESA science mission really works.

    Implementation — Raumzeit Podcast — Planck, a 100-minute interview with Tim Pritlove covering the Planck spacecraft: on-board software maintenance, orbit control, data transmission and the planned end-of-mission shutdown.

    Term Meaning
    Raumzeit German space podcast (“space-time”)
    RZ055 episode 55
    ESA European Space Agency
    Planck satellite mapping the cosmic microwave background
    Nikolai
    Nikolai
  • Spacecraft Operations — Guest Professor, University of Würzburg 2019–now

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    Role — guest professor

    Goal — teach how satellites are operated — not just built — through tailored guest lectures on spacecraft operations for SATEC, the University of Würzburg’s Satellite Technology master’s programme.

    Implementation — the lectures cover how ESA works and how operations are done — ESA has never lost a mission within its designed lifetime — enriched with real stories of major anomalies, like when XMM-Newton went silent or the three hours that saved INTEGRAL, and how the team works together to recover.

    We also invite students for a special Tour and Lecture of the operations center, giving them a behind-the-scenes look at how real spacecraft are controlled.

    Term Meaning
    SATEC Satellite Technology programme, Würzburg
    ESA European Space Agency
    XMM-Newton X-ray Multi-Mirror satellite
    INTEGRAL International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory
    Nikolai
    Nikolai

Available — book via Contact.

Bands

Music & Workshops

  • Wanderfeld (Guitar) 2003–2022

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    Role — guitarist (acoustic, electric and bass)

    Goal — improvise music with light as an equal instrument.

    Implementation — Wanderfeld — an audio-visual ensemble playing light music since 2002 — treats dozens of glowing pyramids by light artist Micha Armingeon as an instrument in their own right: live-controlled at 50 Hz, they play with and against Stephan Huber’s saxophone, Nikolai von Krusenstiern’s guitars and guests on keys or accordion, all improvising together over audible and visible patterns.

    The idea was born at the 100 Lichtjahre art action in Mössingen in 2002 and first performed as a trio in a former factory in Kirchentellinsfurt a year later. More recently the ensemble played the Farrenstall Immenhausen for Flüchtlinge am Werk in 2021 and the HOLZKLANG Festival in Reutlingen in 2022 — with the pyramids since rebuilt to far brighter LEDs and a much wider dynamic range.

    Term Meaning
    Wanderfeld audio-visual ensemble active since 2002
    light pyramids installation by Micha Armingeon
    Wanderfeld
    Wanderfeld
    Concert
    Concert
    Nikolai
    Nikolai
  • Astronomisches Konzert 2013–now

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    Role — solo musician and lecturer

    Goal — make the beauty of the universe graspable in a contemplative way.

    Implementation — the Astronomisches Konzert pairs a few carefully chosen astronomical images — projected large, each briefly introduced from an astrophysics point of view — with fitting music improvised on acoustic guitar and piano. With so few images, each one stays long enough to be taken in slowly, leaving time to enjoy its beauty and room for questions afterwards.

    For example, a performance was held at the Starkenburg-Sternwarte observatory in Heppenheim.

    Term Meaning
    Astronomisches Konzert “the astronomical concert”
    Sternwarte observatory
    Astronomisches Konzert
    Astronomisches Konzert
  • Ritmo con Señas Darmstadt (Teacher) 2022–2025

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    Role — teacher and facilitator

    Goal — let anyone make music together in a group — no sheet music, no audition, everyone welcome.

    Implementation — a conductor shapes the improvisation in real time using the sign language Ritmo con Señas — more than 130 hand and body signs covering rhythm, melody, harmony and structure — created in 2006 by the Argentine musician Santiago Vázquez.

    Groups — the first band to use it was Vázquez’s Buenos Aires ensemble La Bomba del Tiempo, which still plays weekly concerts, while Santiago has since moved on to further musical projects.

    Our Darmstadt group brings together more than fifteen players — from complete beginners to professional musicians, with and without instruments — to improvise together in Darmstadt-Eberstadt, normally every fourth Tuesday of the month and free of charge (a donation for the room is welcome). Newcomers can simply drop in unannounced; regular meetings are currently paused, but enquiries are always welcome.

    Beyond teaching the method, it is a place where participants gradually take the conductor’s role themselves in turns. And if Darmstadt is too far away, the German network helps you find — or found — a group near you, from Tübingen and Berlin to anywhere in the world.

    Term Meaning
    Ritmo con Señas “rhythm with signs” — sign language for conducted improvisation
    conducted improvisation shaping a group’s improvisation in real time
    La Bomba del Tiempo Vázquez’s first Ritmo con Señas ensemble, Buenos Aires
    Nikolai
    Nikolai
  • Ritmo con Señas Workshops (Teacher) 2022–now

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    Role — teacher

    Goal — open conducted group improvisation to absolutely everyone.

    Implementation — entry-level workshops introduce the Ritmo con Señas sign language from scratch, so participants start improvising together in the very first session — no instrument or prior experience needed; a voice, hands or any found rhythm will do.

    The method is documented in the bilingual Manual de Ritmo y Percusión con Señas e-Book by Santiago Vázquez, and the German network lists workshops, groups and online courses for going further.

    Term Meaning
    entry level no prior experience or instrument needed to join
    Ritmo con Señas
    Ritmo con Señas Book
    Nikolai
    Nikolai

Available — book via Contact.

Licences & Certifications

Licences

  • Lifesaving Certificate of the Bavarian Water Rescue Service 1978

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    Role — water-rescue swimmer

    Goal — qualify for water-rescue duty.

    Implementation — the Wasserwacht — the water-rescue branch of the Bavarian Red Cross — issues the Leistungsschein, its proficiency qualification covering lifesaving swimming and rescue technique.

    Term Meaning
    Wasserwacht water-rescue branch of the Bavarian Red Cross
    Leistungsschein proficiency qualification
  • PPL & IR — Instrument Rating 1989–1991

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    Role — pilot

    Goal — fly by reference to instruments alone — in cloud and poor visibility: IFR (Instrument Flight Rules)

    Implementation — under IFR, a pilot needs the FAA instrument rating defined in the Airman Certification Standards.

    Term Meaning
    PPL Private Pilot Licence
    IR Instrument Rating
    IFR Instrument Flight Rules
    FAA Federal Aviation Administration
  • PADI Advanced Open Water Diver 1990–1991

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    Role — diver

    Goal — dive deeper and more proficiently.

    Implementation — the Advanced Open Water Diver — PADI’s second-level scuba certification — adds five adventure dives including deep and underwater navigation, qualifying the diver for depths of up to 30 metres.

    Term Meaning
    PADI Professional Association of Diving Instructors
    scuba self-contained underwater breathing apparatus
  • Radio Amateur Licence — N1QPX 1993

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    Role — radio amateur

    Goal — transmit on the amateur radio bands.

    Implementation — a US licence is required — N1QPX is the callsign issued by the FCC.

    Term Meaning
    N1QPX the issued US amateur callsign
    FCC Federal Communications Commission

Previously

Experience

  • Programmer 1983–now

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    Role — programmer

    Goal — keep a skill alive that has supported my work and private life for more than forty years.

    Implementation — it started in 1983 with BASIC on an Apple II Europlus, soon joined by assembler for its 6502 processor. The university years brought Sun workstations — shell, C, the GNU toolchain, and LaTeX for everything that needed typesetting — followed later by Java and SQL. Since 2016, Python has been the daily companion.

    Term Meaning
    6502 the Apple II’s microprocessor
    GNU free-software toolchain — compiler, shell, utilities
  • UNIX System Administrator (CONVEX Mainframe) 1988–1993

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    Role — UNIX system administrator at the ZDV, the computing centre of the University of Tübingen

    Goal — keep the centre’s CONVEX vector minisupercomputer and its users running.

    Implementation — day-to-day administration of ConvexOS, a UNIX derived from 4.2BSD whose kernel was built to drive the machine’s parallel vector processors.

    Fun fact — the centre’s six-processor C3860 made the TOP500 supercomputer ranking in 1993.

    Term Meaning
    ZDV Zentrum für Datenverarbeitung — computing centre
    CONVEX vector minisupercomputer vendor
    ConvexOS 4.2BSD-derived UNIX for CONVEX systems
    C3860 six-processor CONVEX C3 system
    TOP500 twice-yearly supercomputer ranking
  • Freelance Consultant & Trainer (Firewalls, Oracle, SysAdmin, Programming, …) 1998–2002

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    Role — independent consultant and trainer

    Goal — support the teams working in data centres — designing, implementing and validating their systems and training their staff.

    Implementation — consulting and training on networks and firewalls, Oracle databases, Unix mainframes and Linux servers, and their administration.

    Term Meaning
    SysAdmin system administrator
    Oracle relational database system
  • Herschel & Planck (OBDH/OBSM) 2010–2012

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    Role — OBDH/OBSM engineer

    Goal — support the two telescopes ESA launched together in 2009 — Herschel to observe the cool far-infrared universe — mainly star formation in molecular clouds, Planck to map the CMB.

    Implementation — the OBDH engineering covered the systems handling the vast amounts of science data between instruments and ground, as well as the autonomous commanding and control of the spacecraft; OBSM covered maintaining and updating the on-board software in flight. The mission — its on-board software maintenance, orbit control and planned shutdown — is covered in depth in a 100-minute Raumzeit podcast interview.

    Fun fact — together with Silvano Manganelli, we were tasked with passivating both spacecraft: making sure the transponder could not turn itself back on once disabled — exactly what had happened to SOHO.

    It felt like fighting 1500 brilliant engineers: whatever trick we tried on the simulator, Herschel kept coming back, probing the safety and redundancy concept to the extreme.

    In the end we found a solution that, after the fact, sounds almost too easy — Herschel bowed out as an orbiting testbed, and we applied the same to Planck.

    Term Meaning
    OBDH On-Board Data Handling
    OBSM On-Board Software Management
    ESA European Space Agency
    CMB cosmic microwave background
    SOHO Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
    Planck
    Planck
    Herschel
    Herschel
  • Sentinel-2 (OBDH/OBSM) 2012–2015

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    Role — OBDH/OBSM engineer

    Goal — monitor land and vegetation in high-resolution multispectral detail for the Copernicus environment programme.

    Implementation — Sentinel-2 flies twin Earth-observation satellites; the OBDH engineering covered the same scope as described for Herschel & Planck above.

    Term Meaning
    OBDH On-Board Data Handling
    OBSM On-Board Software Management
    Copernicus EU/ESA Earth-observation programme
    Sentinel-2
    Sentinel-2

Get in touch

Contact

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