David N. Haskins
Hubble Mission Operations Manager
Dave Haskins is the Hubble Space Telescope mission operations manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where he is responsible for maintaining the health and safety of the telescope and ensuring its optimal operations. Haskins’s career at NASA started right after college at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. There he worked on contingency procedures for potential malfunctions with payloads in the space shuttle. This work would introduce him to Hubble through his support of two Hubble related space shuttle missions – the Hubble deployment mission in 1990 and the first Hubble servicing mission in 1993. Later, Haskins would work in a similar capacity with respect to potential hazards to the crew of the International Space Station.
In 1995, Haskins moved north and accepted a position at Goddard as a systems engineer for Hubble’s electrical power system, monitoring the health and safety of that subsystem and optimizing the charging of its nickel-hydrogen batteries. He would eventually move into Hubble’s system management area, leading various working groups and assessments that focused on spacecraft hardware.
After 14 years with Hubble, Haskins briefly left the mission to work on the Landsat Data Continuity Missions as a system integration and test engineer. But after two years he returned as Hubble’s deputy mission operations manager. Within two years he would be promoted to his current position.
Haskins was born in Wellsville, New York. He graduated from Alfred State College with an associate degree in engineering science and a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Buffalo. He is the recipient of a NASA Space Flight Awareness Award and numerous group achievement awards for his work on Hubble.
Haskins lives in Ellicott City, Maryland, with his wife Sujee, who also worked on the Space Shuttle Program, and their three sons. While much of his time is spent supporting his children’s activities, he also has his private pilot’s license and enjoys playing soccer and cycling.
