NOAA’S SATELLITE SERVICE GETS NEW DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR

Colleen Hartman, an award-winning astrophysicist, engineer and governmental space programs manager, was named the new deputy assistant administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Satellite and Information Service. Hartman will help oversee operations, which range from collecting space-based weather and climate data, to managing global, scientific databases. NOAA is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Hartman comes to NOAA from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), where most recently she was the director of Solar System Exploration Division of the Office of Space Science. She will began her new job officially on Sept. 22, 2003.

Gregory W. Withee, the Satellite and Information Service assistant administrator said, “Hartman brings world-class experience and a distinguished track record to NOAA, which will help take our satellite and data center operations and satellite acquisition programs to a higher level.”

In her previous NASA position, Hartman was responsible for all of NASA's solar system science investigations and all of NASA's planetary missions, including Mars and nuclear-powered mission science. She was also instrumental in obtaining approval for exploring innovative approaches to space flight, including solar sails, aerocapture and plasma sails. Before that, Hartman was director of the NASA’s Outer Planets Program, and deputy director for Research in the Office of Space Science.

Hartman began her NASA career in 1981 as a Presidential Management Intern. Under this program, she was a congressional staff member for a year. She then became a program manager in the Astrophysics Division, and was soon assigned to the Explorer Program, overseeing the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE), the Infrared Astrophysics Satellite (IRAS), the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), the Gravity Probe B (GP-B), and the American contribution to the Japanese satellite Yohkoh.

As an engineer at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Hartman helped to build and launch the High Energy Imaging Detector Instrument (HEIDI) and the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS), and then served as the Command and Data Handling (C&DH) and Integration and Testing (I&T) manager on the Aqua project. Her engineering interests and expertise include developing flight software, designing spacecraft C&DH systems, and creating image-processing algorithms.

Hartman was a senior policy analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. During that assignment, she identified a major source of budgetary inefficiency and implemented measures to correct it. She also drafted the Presidential Decision Directive mandating a streamlined management structure for spacecraft developed by interagency agreements.

Hartman’s awards include the NASA Headquarters Outstanding Performance Award, the Claire Booth Luce Fellowship in Science and Engineering, two Goddard Center Director’s Discretionary Fund Awards and the Hugh L. Dryden Memorial Space Club award.

NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service is the nation’s primary source of space-based meteorological and climate data. It operates the nation’s environmental satellites, which are used for weather and ocean observation and forecasting, climate monitoring and other environmental applications, including sea-surface temperature, fire detection and ozone monitoring. NOAA’s commercial licensing program draws on NOAA’s heritage in satellite operations and remote sensing applications.

The Satellite and Information Service also operates three data centers, which house global databases in climatology, oceanography, solid Earth geophysics, marine geology and geophysics, solar-terrestrial physics and paleoclimatology.

NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of America’s coastal and marine resources.

On the Web:

NOAA: http://www.noaa.gov

NOAA Satellite and Information Service: http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov