Julie Wertz Chen facts for kids

Julie Wertz Chen is an American aerospace engineer. She helps design and build spacecraft. She has worked on many exciting NASA missions. These include the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission, the Cassini mission to Saturn, and the InSight mission to Mars. Currently, she is working on the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission.

Julie Wertz Chen's Education

Julie Wertz Chen studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This is a very famous science and engineering school. While at MIT, she was a coxswain on the varsity rowing team. A coxswain is the person who steers the boat and helps the rowers work together.

She was also part of special groups for smart students, like Sigma Gamma Tau and Tau Beta Pi. As a senior, she worked on a cool project called Synchronized Position Hold Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellite (SPHERES). This project helped her learn how to design and build things from start to finish.

For her advanced degrees, she studied in the Space Systems Laboratory at MIT. She researched how to make sure spacecraft designs were safe and wouldn't fail. This was part of her Ph.D. work.

Her Work at NASA

Julie Wertz Chen has spent her whole career at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). JPL is in Pasadena, California. It's a place where scientists and engineers build and control robotic spacecraft.

What is a Systems Engineer?

As a systems engineer, Julie makes sure all the different parts of a spacecraft work together. She also checks that the spacecraft is built correctly and safely. This is called "fault protection" and "verification and validation." It means she helps prevent problems and makes sure everything is tested.

Missions She Has Worked On

Julie was a fault protection engineer for the SMAP and Cassini missions. For the InSight mission to Mars, she was a lead systems engineer. She helped make sure the InSight lander could safely land on Mars and do its science.

Right now, she is part of the team for the SWOT project. This mission will study Earth's surface water and oceans from space.

Her Personal Life

Julie Wertz Chen is married to another NASA JPL systems engineer, Al Chen. They actually met at MIT and were both in the SPHERES class! Al Chen also worked on a big Mars mission. He was part of the team that landed the Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity rover) on Mars. It's pretty cool that they both work on such exciting space missions!