Nzinga Temple Tull, a graduate of Georgia Tech’s School of Mechanical Engineering, was featured in the recently published book, Women of Goddard. Tull, a contractor with Jackson and Tull, has worked with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) mission operations team since July of 1998 and is recognized in the book for her positive impact on the team.
Upon joining the HST team as an electrical power subsystem system engineer, Tull supported normal operations and on-orbit anomaly investigation during the science mission, as well as two Hubble servicing missions. She served as the leader of the power subsystem planning shift during servicing mission 3B, a particularly critical and challenging mission for power systems, since both the solar arrays and the power control unit were replaced. Tull currently works as a member of the HST engineering systems management team, having served as tiger team lead for the last servicing mission, and she supports the system-wide planning and coordination of on-orbit activities. She was selected to represent the HST Mission Operations Team in various public forums, including 60 Minutes (CBS), Behind Closed Doors with Joan Lunden (A&E Network), and the HST 15th Anniversary Symposium at Goddard Space Flight Center.
“It has been extremely challenging and humbling,” remarked Tull, “to work on a system as complex and high profile as HST, with engineers who are experts in their respective fields and virtually walking encyclopedias of HST design and operations. I feel immense pride in being able to point to flight hardware that I helped test or command routines that I developed, because these are tangible examples of how my work has contributed to NASA’s most prolific science mission and a real national treasure.”
