Kendall Mauldin
Next Generation Modeling and Simulation Engineering using Cloud Computing

Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Building 3 Aud 11:00 AM
(Coffee and cookies at 10:30 AM)

In 2015, code 561 and code 700 started a prototyping project to demonstrate the feasibility and utility of using NASA Computing Services Service Office (CSSO) managed infrastructure as a service (IaaS) cloud computing capabilities for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) engineering modeling and simulation (M&S) activities. The objectives of this project include: 1) demonstrate the ability to host and remotely use a M&S engineering application on NASA managed IaaS virtual machines (VMs); 2) demonstrate the ability to perform simulations using M&S software hosted on both a high performance VM and in parallel on multiple VMs; 3) evaluate the trade-offs between cost, simulation efficiency and execution time when using IaaS VMs versus on premise computing resources. The prototyping and evaluation efforts are on-going, and are providing preliminary performance comparison metrics to the engineering test and evaluation team. The capabilities being explored show potential to enable our engineering organizations to be more efficient in their flight mission related modeling and simulation needs, based on the availability of affordable, scalable computing resources.

Kendall Mauldin is an Electrical / Computer Engineer in code 561 at NASA GSFC, and is currently a Product Development Lead (PDL) for a flight subsystem on the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) project.

He started his NASA career in 2001 as a co-op intern at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) in Edwards, CA (now known as the Armstrong Flight Research Center). After graduating from New Mexico State University with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering in 2003, he joined DFRC as a full-time civil servant. While at DFRC, Kendall enjoyed working on a variety of Aeronautics and human space flight related test programs. This experience included serving as the Lead Flight Systems Engineer for the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle Abort Flight Test (AFT) Program, and the Lead Platform Flight Systems Engineer for the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) program. In 2012, Kendall transferred to GSFC to gain experience with scientific space flight and technology demonstration missions that are unique to Goddard. Prior to joining the LCRD project as a PDL, he supported the integration and test of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Instrument Command and Data Handling (ICDH) unit prior to delivery of the unit to the project at GSFC.
IS&T Colloquium Committee Host: John Donohue

Sign language interpreter upon request: 301-286-7040