Jaykumar J Vaidya
(FACULTY RESEARCH ASST)
| Email: | jaykumar.j.vaidya@nasa.gov |
| Phone: | 301.286.0981 |
| Org Code: | |
| Address: |
NASA/GSFC Mail Code 699 Greenbelt, MD 20771 |
| Employer: | UMBC Univ. of MD, Baltimore County |
Brief Bio
Mr. Vaidya serves as Ground Support Equipment Engineering Lead and Ground Systems Operations Lead within the Planetary Environments Laboratory of the Solar System Exploration Division (SSED) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). He holds command-sequence review-and-approval authority for the MAVEN NGIMS instrument and leads ground systems, calibration, and operational readiness for the GDC-MoSAIC, DISSIPATION-MoSAIC, and CLPS-SEAL instruments. His expertise lies in optimizing the dynamic sensitivity range of quadrupole mass spectrometers (QMS), enhancing their capability to precisely characterize low-density ion species with high sensitivity while retaining the flexibility to measure mid- and high-density species at optimal sensitivity, ensuring accurate detection of ions of interest across diverse planetary atmospheric regions during flight.
Mr. Vaidya designs and develops the ground support electronics that tune flight-qualified mass spectrometers, supporting the full development lifecycle from Brass-Board (BB) units to Engineering Test Units (ETU) and Flight Model (FM) units. He also processes and delivers NGIMS science data products to NASA's Planetary Data System.
Jaykumar's alma mater includes the University of Virginia, where he earned a Master's in Electrical Engineering, and the University of Mumbai, where he completed his Bachelor's degree.
Research Interests
Instrument calibration, Ground Support Equipment hardware and software development
Solar System: Technology & MissionsCurrent Projects
DISSIPATION - Modular Spectrometer for Atmosphere and Ionosphere Characterization (MoSAIC)
Earth's Thermosphere
DISSIPATION is a sounding rocket mission designed to study the interactions between charged ions and neutral gases in the auroral transition region. A key instrument aboard the mission was MoSAIC, a Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer (QMS) tasked with analyzing ion density and the composition of species of interest during the auroral transition. Jaykumar calibrated MoSAIC's ion source, mass analyzer, and detector using ground support equipment he developed, and conducted the flight-level test with the flight electronics that established mission readiness. He served as the designated Go/No-Go authorization holder for the MoSAIC instrument during launch operations. The DISSIPATION mission was successfully launched on November 8, 2023, from the Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska. (Read More: A Rocket Launch in Photos: Dissipation’s Journey to the Aurora – and Beyond!, NASA Sounding Rocket Launches into Alaskan Aurora, Watch: A recap of UMBC-led NASA Dissipation sounding rocket launch, Launch Video)
Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) - Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS)
Mars
NGIMS is a Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer (QMS) designed to analyze the composition of the Martian upper atmosphere. Jaykumar serves as the Ground Systems Operations Lead for NGIMS, holding review-and-approval authority over NGIMS orbital science modes and every Predicted Events File (PEF) before instrument command sequences are cleared for uplink. He is also responsible for the instrument's complete science data pipeline, converting raw instrument characteristics into derived science measurements and releasing each NGIMS science bundle to NASA's Planetary Data System (PDS), where researchers worldwide rely on these data products. During the mission's current Phase F execution, Jaykumar is leading the final PDS re-delivery of the complete mission dataset, reprocessed from the beginning of the mission through an upgraded data processing pipeline.
At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Jaykumar also maintains and operates the NGIMS testbed unit, which mirrors the functionality and compatibility of the spaceborne NGIMS and serves as the critical tool for troubleshooting, testing, and validation before operational approaches are committed to flight.
Geospace Dynamics Constellation (GDC) - Modular Spectrometer for Atmosphere and Ionosphere Characterization (MoSAIC)
Earth's Thermosphere
MoSAIC builds on the legacy of mass spectrometers flown on previous missions including DISSIPATION, MAVEN, and LADEE. On the upcoming Geospace Dynamics Constellation, a priority mission recommended by the Heliophysics Decadal Surveys, MoSAIC will measure ion composition, temperature, and wind speed in Earth's upper atmosphere. Jaykumar leads the development of MoSAIC's Ground Support Equipment (GSE), hardware and software, enabling the instrument's calibration using neutral gases, and contributed to the development of an ion beam chamber that generates ion beams at suitable energy levels for calibration. This setup has been successfully used to calibrate MoSAIC's Engineering Test Unit (ETU). (Read More: GDC’s MoSAIC Instrument Passes Testing Milestones)
Surface and Exosphere Alteration by Landers (SEAL)
Moons
The Surface and Exosphere Alteration by Landers (SEAL) instrument is a neutral mass spectrometer that will investigate how a spacecraft's landing alters the Moon's surface and tenuous exosphere, providing in-situ data on volatiles including water, a critical resource for exploration. SEAL is built on flight-spare heritage from the 1998 Nozomi mission, restored and requalified for lunar flight, and is manifested for delivery to the lunar surface through NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative aboard the Intuitive Machines IM-4 mission. Jaykumar serves as SEAL's Ground Support and Operations Lead, responsible for the ground systems, calibration support, and operational readiness of the instrument.
Positions/Employment
Ground Support Equipment Engineering Lead
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) / University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) - Goddard, Maryland
May 2022 - Present
Application Development Engineer
Applied Materials Inc. - Santa Clara, CA
January 2022 - April 2022
Research Scientist
Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) / NASA GSFC - Greenbelt, Maryland
May 2021 - December 2021
Graduate Student Researcher
University of Virginia - Charlottesville, VA
August 2019 - December 2021
Mr. Vaidya was involved in studying the coupled electronic oscillator systems and ferroelectric non-volatile memories during his graduate research at University of Virginia
Junior Research Fellow
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research - Mumbai, India
May 2016 - June 2019
Mr. Vaidya led the nano-fabrication of high Tc superconductor BSCCO and complex nano-structures of Weyl semi-metal TaAs
Education
Master of Engineering (2021), University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Bachelors of Engineering (B.E.) in Electronics Engineering, KJSCE, Mumbai, India
Professional Service
Peer Reviewer, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices