Global Precipitation Measurement Satellite Hardware Dispute
Keith’s note: This email/memo was sent from Christopher Strickland’s official NASA email account at 10:57 am EDT today to more than 30 individuals – all at their official NASA email addresses. No request for anonymity was requested of me. Nor did I solicit this memo. As far as I am concerned Mr. Strickland made this memo public. I cannot vouch for anything that is contained in the email but he has gone out of his way – in his official capacity at NASA – to tell people about this issue – and does so in a rather cogent fashion. Here is the memo, verbatim.
“To Whom It May Concern:
Due to the culmination of abusive behavior by the Mission Systems Engineer over the past year, including hostile treatment in front of project and division management during a review, and continued assault in the parking lot later that same day; I resign my position as Lead of the High Gain Antenna System for the Global Precipitation Measurement satellite at Goddard Space Flight Center effective immediately.
Every attempt has been made to resolve this conflict before reaching this point but nothing has been done. Trying to talk one on one with Dave Ward yielded a comment that he thought I was trying to lie and do just enough to sneak the HGAS past him when in fact the HGAS team has met and exceeded all of our requirements. Numerous requests to GPM project manager John Deily about the bad behavior of Mr. Ward yielded a similar response that I had to learn to deal with it. Appeals to my division manager were met with deaf ears and the prompting to just get back to work. My few leadership and supervisor training classes have all taught me that these were the exact wrong responses to dealing with conflict resolution.
I have worked as the HGAS lead for the past seven years and over that time the team has designed, built, tested and integrated a successful system with a few learning opportunities along the way. During the past two years, Dave Ward has created a hostile work environment with others, and notably me, in meetings concerning the HGAS. His continued behavior of yelling, cursing and intimidation has made it very difficult for everyone working on the system and the satellite.
For over a year, HGAS was determined by the project management to be the critical path for the entire satellite. We acknowledged we were behind schedule but did not agree with the tall pole status, yet we persisted to work to deliver as best we could. One month from our delivery, the systems team decided that we needed to add an EMI test to our environmental plan. It was debated that the results would not be conclusive and would not alleviate the need for EMI testing of the HGAS on the spacecraft. The MSE persisted and HGAS was delayed for over two weeks for testing that was not approved during the environmental review or by any other independent board. After the test and the HGAS hardware was delivered, it could not be flight verified on the spacecraft. Supporting flight systems and boxes had not been integrated. So I struggle to understand why it was not until HGAS was installed that we were finally removed from the critical path.
Keeping the High Gain Antenna (HGA) dish installed after system level testing has long been a controversy. The HGAS approach was to remove the dish after system level testing to prevent the possibility of damage during the rest of integration activities and the environmental testing. Our approach was similar to that of XTE and TRMM where the dish was tested at the component level and again with the subsystem. This way all of the environmental testing required was achieved and the dish could be removed and treated similar to the solar array panels. Dave Ward has been adamant that the HGA dish would stay on and never be removed, like he experienced on SDO. Our division consultant, Alan Posey, agreed that it was a better plan to be more like XTE rather than SDO since the HGA dish is fragile and can easily be bumped or misaligned during assembly due to our size and location on the spacecraft. Dave Ward got his way only because the independent technical authority said he would not recommend it but it was a project decision to accept the risk.
I have been very vocal about protecting the HGA dish after we were assembled to the spacecraft. There were numerous instances where workers in the clean room would work close to the HGA and bump into or lean on the dish. I expressed my concern to the project but the risky work continued. At one point, we noticed the Kapton blanket cover we had installed to try to help protect the dish had been disturbed, showing a large indentation near the feed. I inquired with Systems and QA to determine what and when it happened. Again the system lead showed contempt and told me that it was my hardware for me figure out and fix. We opened a PR to document the mishap and were instructed by project management to make sure it was closed quickly before the upcoming SIR. The chair of the SIR, Chris Stevens, noted that when they observed the work happening on the satellite he was concerned about the fact that people were working too close to the HGA dish and was wondering why there was no barrier to cordon off the area. Dave Ward said that there were safeguards in place to help protect the dish and the hardware. This was a complete misrepresentation of the facts because there were at least three instances that I know of where tools were left on the spacecraft and fell during rotation maneuvers not to mention a PR about the exact concern of the HGA. He hid the facts from the review panel and forced me to make an undesirable choice. I could either speak out in a review against the project or go along with the cover-up story. Right after the review I chose to talk to a panel member and reveal the facts about the recent PR to try to avoid any impression that I was not part of the GPM team.
I have learned that an advisory was written as part of the review to better ensure the safety of the hardware. During the next project review meeting, I showed the spacecraft manager my computer screen that showed a live video feed of the clean room and someone working while leanly slightly on the dish. I have asked Dave Ward many times to send me the advisory so I could help respond honestly and openly to the panel. He said he would send the advisory to me and the system engineer responsible for HGAS, Jim Simpson. He has never sent me the report and I have never seen the exact wording. If a response has been submitted, I want to make it clear that neither I nor any HGAS member were ever asked or gave any assistance to the response. It seems strange that the MSE can make a decision that carries high risk but when the risk is unfortunately realized, he passes the responsibility on to the ones who warned against it.
Last week while working to close out WOA paperwork, I found that QA had not yet approved a section of a procedure for the HGAS vibration testing. I noted the oversight and QA reviewed and signed the missing section. QA also left a comment that he noticed in our report that our low level vibration test only went to 8 Hz instead of the 5 Hz listed in the test specification. An HGAS analyst responded that the limit of 8 Hz was due to the limitation of the stroke distance of the shaker table. This was thoroughly documented in the HGAS vibration test report. After the harassment and assault at the PSR, I have been working with Jim Simpson as my system engineer contact. Jim emailed me that Dave Ward is now demanding that a waiver be written to document the failure of HGAS to meet its test requirements. I responded that a waiver is not needed because the true cause is the limit of the test facility, not the planning and execution of the test by the HGAS team. Tim Carnahan, the lead GPM vibration engineer, responded in kind stating that all facilities have this issue and he approves all test levels after examining the limit of the table. Jim Simpson replied that Dave still insisted on a waiver but that it would be approved without the review of the CCB board.
I am at a complete loss why anyone who clearly does not understand vibration testing would not defer to the lead of the system that they appropriately tested their hardware. If a question still remains, they should consult another independent technical source for their opinion. But why would you insist on a waiver after both technically capable people agree and ignore their recommendation. This only creates more useless work that would misrepresent the facts and waste resources dealing with the questions that might arise.
As more evidence of the disparity, the HGAS vibe report detailing the test and the table limits was approved by HGAS, Systems, QA and Tim Carnahan before the HGAS acceptance review in December. Dave Ward insisted at that time that he get written approval from another vibration analyst, Pete Mule, of the report before he would agree that we had passed our environmental testing. Now two HGAS analysts, the HGAS lead, and four independent technical advisors have all agreed the vibration testing was sufficient but Dave Ward is ignoring their advice and still persists that a waiver be written. In my research to find a similar waiver on the GPM MIS system, I was not able to find any other system that was required to submit a waiver. In fact, I found that the propulsion tank vibration test WOA (WOA-GPM-PROP-0085AsRun ) was never signed off for the actual vibration testing.
There has been much pressure from Dave Ward and the project management that the closure of HGAS WOAs has been taking too long to accomplish. My reviews of the WOAs are extensive to prevent the oversight similar to the previously mentioned WOA. The project keeps insisting that I get more WOAs closed more quickly but when I push back that proper review takes a large amount of time they just state that other systems are closing their WOAs more quickly. When I pressed John Deily on how he can approve such a large number of WOAs so quickly, he finally admitted that he does not review the paperwork but just checks to make sure QA and Systems have approved before he signs.
During the HGAS environmental review Dave Ward was very rude and arrogant in dealing with the entire HGAS team. He demanded that we perform optical alignment checks of the deployed system after each environmental test. It had already been explained to him that optical alignments of this type of deployed system would have errors due to unpredictable gravity sag. He yelled that it had to be done and refused to approve our test plan until it had been added. I later conferred with the 540 chief engineer and other deployable experts about this issue and they agreed in writing that the test was not necessary and could possibly confuse the data but definitely waste schedule and costs to perform the tests. That the HGAS method was a better plan and the tight tolerance pinned joints posed no risk of misalignment was agreed upon by the experts.
At our acceptance review Dave Ward’s bullying behavior persisted. As the MSE, he declared that HGAS was not ready to proceed to spacecraft integration because we did not have the full deployed optical alignment. The next day I requested another meeting where our optical engineer, Sam Hetherington, and GPM project manager also attended. After a quick discussion with questions from Art and answers from Sam, it was decided that the requirement was met by the HGAS plan of determining the alignment in parts and adding to establish the whole. One bolted joint that was to be measured later was all that was missing and it was planned to be done after integration of HGAS. The project manager overruled the MSE decision and HGAS was asked to proceed with integration. This method has been explained to Dave Ward by me many times and another systems engineer, Leslie Hartz, even helped try to ease the harassment by agreeing to take over the pointing budget after agreeing with our approach. Unfortunately, she has since left the project like her predecessor.
Yesterday, I learned from the new systems engineer that Dave Ward has put a deployed optical alignment in the I&T schedule for our next deployment. His ignorance of the system and how to verify the requirement has already cost HGAS and the taxpayers time and money to deal with the same demands over and over. The mechanical, deployable, and optical experts have all agreed with the HGAS approach as the better method to verify our total pointing. The simple engineering principle of linear superposition is used in many environmental tests but for some reason the lead technical authority of GPM, the MSE, refuses to accept this approach. I have written an abstract on the optical testing of GPM HGAS as the preferred approach for large deployable systems and it has been approved by the selection committee for the Space Simulation Conference.
After a year of enduring a hostile work environment, misrepresentations and abusive behavior, I escalated my concerns but still to no avail. OHCM and Dave Ward’s branch and division management has stated that the situation has been handled. The recent incidents by Dave Ward shows that he has not stopped the unacceptable behavior but has instead escalated it. He is revisiting old issues that were resolved but not in his favor and adding extra burden to HGAS that he does not require of other systems.
I believe that the root cause is the reluctance of project, division, security, and resource management to swiftly and decisively act using the policies put in place to handle such a situation. Why have the policies and training if you refuse to act on and enforce them? This type of “culture” behavior has been noted in all reviews of NASA after large catastrophic events but unfortunately it is alive and well at Goddard.
It is with a heavy heart that I do this. It has been and is my wish to see all the HGAS team hard works culminate in a launch and successful operation of the spacecraft. It is my hope that the real purpose of this letter is seen as not to offend concerned parties but to eliminate the apathy that seems to run so rampant when dealing with these issues. I was guided by two pieces of advice when I wrote this, one from my father and the other from the workplace violence training: You are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem, and do you want to be the person at Johnson Space Center who thought it wasn’t their place to say something when they noticed the behavior? For contacts concerning HGAS, please refer to the following list:
HGA – David Lassiter
Gimbals – Fil Parong
Hinges – Chris Rose
Deck – Brad Crittenden
LRM – Chris Johnson
Thermal – Dan Powers
Blankets – Brenda Estavia
FEA – Bryon Stepp
ADAMS – Walt Garcen
G-Negation – Blair Russell and Craig Huber
Sincerely,
Chris Strickland”
Ironic that we just had a briefing from Goddard’s Office of Human Capital Management (OHCM) about how seriously they take harassment.
Kudos to Keith for re-posting this email. One wishes that Mr Strickland had recorded some of this abusive behavior, as it would have left no room for denial or obfuscation from the more senior powers that be.
If this is indeed prevalent at today’s NASA- I suggest all employees download a cheap recording app and go into all meetings with a droid or iPhone. Talk about government in the sunshine! I hope Mr Strickland is vindicated in some way. It seems he fell on his sword on this one.
The guy here was working at GSFC in Maryland. In Maryland, recording people without their consent would comprise an illegal wiretap.
unless they are being verbally or physcially abusive, which he claims.
different states differ as does the federal law, I think many of these laws refer to telephone conversations,if you are in a parking lot………………
you might be fair game.
my photography instructer tells me you are fair game out in the open in a public place, other alternatives are to record and be anonmounus when you post it.
seeing alot of these bullys and racists in the military and civil servive( some are racists and homophobic ect ect but not all bullys) I am all for exposing them.
so lets “luanch” “take back NASA”
I would like to hear Dave Ward’s side of the argument before judging. It takes two to tango.
I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that they’ve been working on a high gain antenna system for seven years. Am I the only one that finds that fact shocking?
Me too, and I wonder why there’s a separate person assigned to ‘hinges’ and to ‘gimbals’ and ‘blankets’. Clearly I need to understand more about how these teams work.
Because GSFC, if not all of NASA, is a “union organization” filled with specialists. The polar opposite of the “do-it-all” type of engineer that you are perhaps envisioning. And every project, every subsystem, has to be staffed with one or more of all types, whether or not they are needed. And we wonder why costs are so high…
Exactly. There are specialist for all types of things at NASA, where they have to deal with zero gravity and zero atmosphere and how to test items with zero gravity on the ground is sometimes difficult…but I digress. The number of years is not shocking, but many people like Mr Lassiter and other specialists, work multiple programs at one time, so it isn’t like he spent every day of 7 years working solely on the GPM mission.
Somehow I feel the technical aspects of the project are besides the point here.
I can see the rationale for having a waiver. Hardware requirement was to be tested from 5-X Hz. Test facility only could go down to 8. It’s a problem with the facility, but the project could have used another facility. I’ve seen waivers against hardware where the test facility couldn’t meet the requirements. One only needs to do a net search for SSP 41172 to find many exceptions to environmental testing, including vibe testing where the levels could not be met.
You can find pictures of the antenna and the satellite with the antenna here
http://pmm.nasa.gov/categor…
I don’t see anything constructive about publishing this letter publicly without context or background. This is a management/HR/omnbudsman issue. Not a public issue. I can pull out a truckload of this flavor of documentation, but that truckload would be no more valuable than this piece is. So there are personnel conflicts in management? Who would have guessed?
If Strickland intended to make this letter pubic, then he should be reprimanded for doing so. It wasn’t necessary, and it serves no purpose. If he didn’t intend to do so, but sent it though routes whereby it could, then he was just naive. A letter like this, purposely released publicly, could be taken as libelous.
As has been pointed out, this letter is of little value to anyone without a response/rebuttal, and it certainly is of little value to people outside the management chain in any case.
I think he should be commended of revealing the way that NASA mismanages things.
Now I’m really surprised. I that what you thought you were doing by publishing this letter? All this “reveals” is that one person was pissed off at another person. In itself, it doesn’t convey any judicial authority, nor does is really establish who is to blame. Taking this letter as an indictment of NASA management is just screwy.
In the ennervating spirit of yellow journalism, I might be interested in a real story about a vendetta, but there’s no story here. This is just one person being pissed off at another person.
Please try again. Why did you publish this letter?
You have made your point. This email is an official government memo. Period. If you do not like what you see on NASA Watch then stop reading NASA Watch.
Really? Point to a single FACT in anything that Strickland had to say. Right… All you have is his narrative, which may be true or false or anywhere in between. For all we know he may have been skipping his meds lately. Some of the most paranoid, delusional types sound very convincing, you know.
Yet another blatant example of the ax you have to grind with the agency, for reasons unknown to me. Just immediately jump to the conclusion that everything is amiss… Maybe some of the veterans on this forum can fill me in.
At first I thought you were just cranky, but now I’m pretty sure you are
trolling. Either way, I feel like responding. While I
cannot speak to the veracity of the accusations in this
particular memo, I have personally seen behavior of this type at GSFC
and HQ, so I think it justifies feeding a troll for the elaboration of
the topic.
This is not only an HR/Management/ombudsman issue. As he states in his
message, this is a culture issue. The dismissive nature of your comment
only highlights the ingrained callousness and stupidity of the personnel management
process of NASA. It is okay to complain all you want, as long as no one
important hears you.
It is pretty obvious that he intended to make this letter public. Since
he resigned, reprimanding him now would not only be masturbatory
management, it would endorse retribution on those people who
believe they are being bullied, preyed upon, or have otherwise been
disenfranchised by the ineffective policies governing civil servant
performance.
Libelous or not, this email is valuable for the simple fact that it
represents one person’s abject frustration. Whether or not he is right
or wrong in his accusations, they need to be made AND ADDRESSED in
public. Shining some light on the shadowy netherworld of how the
ineffective, the incapable, the tyrannical, and the apathetic can
possibly get “meets expectations” for 20 years, hit GS 15 and RIP will
only help those that actually try to do their jobs effectively and
correctly.
I would be interested to know if he attempted arbitration or went over
division level management. Unfortunately, I have no doubt that this
will get swept under the rug. We will not hear from any of the people
named, as they will not want to be associated with Strickland anymore.
We will not hear from his supervisor or management, as they don’t want
to go on the record as being complicit or go against PAO policies. We
will not hear from center or HQ management, as they might actually have
to do something about their broken processes or failed policies.
I’ve “yellowed” up my comment for you so you can actually see an example. Posting a memo on a blog isn’t yellow journalism. But you freaking out about it is pretty darn funny. Thanks for the lulz.
There are other avenues for this. I’d be interested to know if he went to the OIG (Office of Inspector General). Taking such a route might have actually produced an investigation which might have led to some tangible action being taken. As it is, his letter may be considered sour grapes, and is that what he really wanted? I think not. Of course, the OIG could always start an investigation. But a letter to the OIG wouldn’t have hurt.
People on the receiving end of the sort of bullying described in the letter generally won’t act rationally when they act. Bullies are good at recognising people who defend themselves. The people who are targeted will always be the ones who don’t react well, who bottle up the major abuse, and then when they do complain, complain excessively over something seemingly trivial, so it’s easy for the bully to explain it away (making the victim look like an over-sensitive whiner, and grinding them down that little bit more.)
One of the reasons I would believe the letter is because it has that feel. The list of trivial little things used as examples, because it’s hard to explain to other people what is actually going on, because often you can’t really understand what’s going on, it doesn’t make any damn sense to you.
What exactly does NASA management bring to the table these days anyway? For the six-figure salaries they bring home the least they could do is effectiviely manage the in-house food fights. Maybe they are all working on JWST these days.
“a similar response that I had to learn to deal with it.” – Sadly this seems to be the mindset here at GSFC more often than not.
Waivers due to technical limitations of the test hardware are common. If you can show that those limitations do not impact the validity of the test, then the waiver just becomes that much easier. The point is that if there is a requirement you won’t meet, regardless of why, you need a waiver. It is not that hard and it happens all the time.