The late Stephen Hawking once said that we should all remember to look up at the stars and not down at our feet. It admittedly takes a lot of imagination and perhaps even some faith to remember that as big as our world is, we really are just a grain of sand on the stellar map. What is waiting to be discovered out in the cosmos? With approximately two trillion galaxies in our observable universe and even more planets, many of which could be in the Goldilocks (habitable) zone, the possibility of extraterrestrial life and other wonders exists – if we can find it. At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, Sam Zadeh is dedicating his career to the search for answers. Zadeh is a NASA JPL Project Configuration Manager, and he oversees project teams to ensure the design requirements of spacecraft are accurately and consistently implemented. Every morning, when he sits down at his desk, Zadeh knows that his work is contributing to the unforgettable moment when humankind finally learns whether it is truly alone.
“When I was a boy, I spent a lot of time in my family’s backyard, looking up at the night sky while everyone else was watching TV,” says Zadeh. “I knew all the phases of the moon and constellations, and as I got older, my curiosity about space only deepened. As I went into high school, I knew I wanted to work at NASA, where incredible research was being done and discoveries were being made. I had to be a part of that.”
In college, Zadeh first obtained his bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering before earning his master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, specializing in Aerospace Engineering. After graduating, he went on to work for the world’s top aircraft manufacturers, supporting advanced aircraft programs for the Airbus 220 (formerly the Bombardier CSeries), Bombardier Global 7000/8000, and General Dynamics Gulfstream Aerospace G500/600.
“It was exciting work, and because of it, I was able to become a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in my field,” says Zadeh. “Fulfilling as this was, my ultimate goal was to work for NASA, so I applied at JPL and was thrilled when I landed my dream job.”
As a NASA JPL Project Configuration Manager, Zadeh tailors and implements the institutional CM process requirements on assigned JPL flight projects and ensures that any changes in the product baseline are identified, assessed, and approved.
Zadeh is also the Certification of Flight Readiness (CoFR) lead on the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) Mission. He coordinates with project teams to capture required CoFR artifacts that are then presented to NASA JPL institutional directors, confirming certification of the flight readiness of the JPL deliverable prior to mission launch.
Over his time with NASA, Zadeh has supported crucial missions, including SPHEREx, which studies the Big Bang theory and origins of galaxies; Sentinel 6, which is dedicated to understanding climate change; and SWOT (Surface Water Ocean and Topography), which helps to research the world’s oceans.
“All of these projects have been incredible, but my favorite so far has been SPHEREx,” says Zadeh. “It has been very gratifying to contribute to research into what happened less than a billionth of a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. I have loved the challenge of the project. My hope is that SPHEREx will give us evidence of how the first galaxies formed stars so many megaannum ago.”
Zadeh believes that given the advancements in technology that are being made each day, it is only inevitable that our questions about the universe and our place in it will be answered.
“Unfortunately, we won’t understand everything in our lifetime, of course,” he says. “But, that’s the exciting part – all the discoveries that we are making even if we don’t get to know it all. We are laying the foundation for even more discoveries to be made by future generations. At NASA JPL, everything we do gives us deeper insight into this incredible world. Nothing is more exciting, or fulfilling, than that.”
