Mr. Coppedge will share the thrill and the latest and greatest hits of the Cassini mission to Saturn. His presentation highlights the surprising discoveries at Saturn, and also shows the human side of space exploration and climaxes with news from the dramatic landing of the Huygens Probe on Titan on January 14.

David F. Coppedge (B.S. physics, Cal State Northridge) is the team lead
system administrator for the Cassini Mission to Saturn and Titan at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He and his team of six administer the computers and networks for the ground systems, both Development and Operations, where scientists and engineers build command sequences to send to the spacecraft and receive data back to Earth.

He is also responsible for a dozen remote-operations sites across the US and Europe where instrument teams are located. A member of the Cassini team since before launch in October, 1997, Dave has witnessed the entire mission. He frequently interacts with the planetary scientists and attends the science briefings as new discoveries come in. An occasional tour guide and speaker (and star party leader), Dave enjoys sharing the thrill of discovery with audiences.

For more information, please see: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.