Dave Doody

California, United States

Proposed name: Operations Lead

Dave Doody has been interested in interplanetary space flight since at least age 6 when his father built a 16-foot tall rocket ship in the back yard for him and his neighborhood friends to "fly" among the planets. Dave came to Pasadena from Catalina Island and started working with JPL's Deep Space Network in 1982. Then he came to work at JPL with the Voyager mission in 1985. After serving post-Voyager as a member of the Magellan flight team on its Venus-mapping mission, Dave joined Cassini, and is currently Operations Lead for the Cassini Mission Support and Services Office. He gives public talks frequently about Cassini or space flight operations in general.

Eager to share the excitement of interplanetary exploration, Dave has come up with educational, free downloadable paper scale models of spacecraft, such as Galileo, Stardust, Cassini, and others. There's even a complex model of a Deep Space Network tracking station that can be downloaded and assembled. They're appropriate for people generally age 12 through adult, although younger people might venture to try them if they have enough motivation and interest.

A few times a year you'll find Dave playing "sidewalk astronomer" in Old Town Pasadena, offering free views of Jupiter and Saturn through the JPL Astronomy Club's massive Tinsley Cassegrain telescope.

Latest Planetary Radio Appearance

Basics of Interplanetary Flight With Dave Doody

04/08/2013 | 28:50
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JPL’s Dave Doody doesn’t just fly around the solar system, he teaches others how it's done. We talk about what students learn in his non-technical class, the Basics of Interplanetary Flight.

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