Jacob Schaffner, Managing Engineer
Jacob (Jake) Schaffner is the systems architect and original designer of the ECAM modular space camera system. He led a small team of engineers and technicians to deliver the ECAM-DVR4L and ECAM-C50/M50 for their maiden voyage as the OSIRIS-REx Touch-And-Go CAMera System (TAGCAMS) in 2015. This subsystem was utilized to discover the ejection of material from the asteroid Bennu and to navigate the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to a precise location on the surface of Bennu for the "Touch-And-Go" sample collection manuever. This hardware remains a critical capability in the OSIRIS-APEX extended mission to follow return of the collected Bennu sample to Earth. Similar capabilities were employed on the Lucy mission currently enroute to the Trojan asteroids.
ECAM flight hardware has since been delivered to dozens of scientific, on-orbit servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (OSAM), and national security missions, performing science, navigation, engineering, and situational awareness imaging functions.
As Managing Engineer, Jacob leads research and development of new ECAM products, such as the ECAM-P50, ECAM-L50, ECAM-S55, ECAM-IR13, and ECAM-DVR4P as well as flight-critical and safety-critical navigation cameras such as LCAM (Mars2020) and DCAM (Artemis-2+). He also has management oversight of the Production and Quality Assurance teams in the Camera Systems Group.
Jacob joined Malin Space Science Systems in 2004, during the final assembly of the CTX and MARCI instruments for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. He supported calibration, test, and delivery of these instruments, while also performing research and development on an early color CMOS camera.
Soon after the delivery of CTX and MARCI, MSSS was selected by NASA to develop both the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) instrument suite for LRO and the MARDI, MAHLI, and Mastcam (MMM) instrument suite for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover. While working under Michael Ravine (Project Manager) and Michael Caplinger (Systems Engineer), Schaffner was deeply involved in the detailed system design for these instruments, serving as cognizant engineer (and electronics/logic designer) for the LROC Sequence and Compression System (SCS) and the MMM Digital Electronics Assembly (DEA). Both of these units interface cameras to the spacecraft and provide real-time image processing and buffering functions.
Jacob also developed the electronics for CMA, a CMOS camera system for a classified Earth orbiter, and the Junocam Digital Electronics Assembly (JDEA) for the Juno mission to Jupiter.
Prior to starting work at MSSS, he worked for many years while at Cal Poly (San Luis Obispo, CA) on the development of 1kg, 10cm cube picosatellites, know as CubeSats. He was project manager and lead engineer for CP1, the first satellite designed, built, and launched by Cal Poly and oversaw the initial development of the follow-on CP2 satellite. He designed and built flight deployment electronics for the Poly Picosatellite Orbital Deployer (P-POD) and supported the first-ever CubeSat launch. He also completed a studentship at Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (Guildford, UK) developing a CubeSat orbital transfer and deployment vehicle concept.
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Publications and Abstracts
Robinson, M. S., S. M. Brylow, M. Tschimmel, D. Humm, S. J. Lawrence , P. C. Thomas, B. W. Denevi, E. Bowman-Cisneros, J. Zerr, M. A. Ravine, M. A. Caplinger, F. T. Ghaemi, J. A. Schaffner, M. C. Malin, P. Mahanti, A. Bartels, J. Anderson, T. N. Tran, E. M. Eliason, A. S. McEwen, E. Turtle, B. L. Jolliff, and H. Hiesinger (2010), Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Instrument Review, Space Science Reviews 150, 81–124, doi:10.1007/s11214-010-9634-2.
Malin, M. C., M. A. Caplinger, K. S. Edgett, F. T. Ghaemi, M. A. Ravine, J. A. Schaffner, J. M. Baker, J. D. Bardis, D. R. DiBase, J. N. Maki, R. G. Willson, J. F. Bell III, W. E. Dietrich, L. J. Edwards, N. Hallet, K. E. Herkenhoff, J. Shieber, R.J. Sullivan, D. Y. Summer, P. C. Thomas, and R. A. Yingst (2010), The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Mast-Mounted Cameras (Mastcams) Flight Instruments, 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, TX, abstract #1123. — PDF
Malin, M. C., M. A. Caplinger, K. S. Edgett, F. T. Ghaemi, M. A. Ravine, J. A. Schaffner, J. N. Maki, R. G. Willson, J. F. Bell III, J. F. Cameron, W. E. Dietrich, L. J. Edwards, N. Hallet, K. E. Herkenhoff, J. Shieber, R.J. Sullivan, D. Y. Summer, P. C. Thomas, and R. A. Yingst (2010), The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) Flight Instrument, 40th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, TX, abstract #1199. — PDF
Edgett, K. S., M. A. Ravine, M. A. Caplinger, F. T. Ghaemi, J. A. Schaffner, M. C. Malin, J. M. Baker, D. R. DiBiase, J. Laramee, J. N. Maki, R. G. Willson, J. F. Bell III, J. F. Cameron, W. E. Dietrich, L. J. Edwards, B. Hallet, K. E. Herkenhoff, E. Heydari, L. C. Kah, M. T. Lemmon, M. E. Minitti, T.S. Olson, T. J. Parker, S. K. Rowland, J. Shieber, R.J. Sullivan, D. Y. Summer, P. C. Thomas, and R. A. Yingst (2010), The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) Flight Instrument, 40th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, TX, abstract #1197. — PDF
Ward, C., A. Curiel, M. Sweeting, J. Schaffner, and G. S. Aglietti (2005), Surrey Small Satellite Transfer Vehicle, Proceedings of the 56th International Astronautical Federation Congress. — Link
Baker, A., A. Curiel, J. Schaffner, and M. Sweeting (2005), You Can Get There From Here: Advanced Low Cost Propulsion Concepts for Small Satellites Beyond LEO, Acta Astronautica 57, 288–301. — Link
Baker, A., A. Curiel, J. Schaffner, and M. Sweeting (2004), Advanced Low Cost Propulsion Concepts for Small Satellites Beyond LEO, Proceedings of the 55th International Astronautical Federation Congress.
Schaffner, J. (2003), The Electronic System Design and Analysis of the Cal Poly State University CP1 CubeSat, presented at the CSU Student Research Competition.
Schaffner, J. (2002), The Electronic System Design, Analysis, Integration, and Construction of the Cal Poly State University CP1 CubeSat, presented at the USU/AIAA Small Satellite Conference.
