National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Bio for Mike Kearney, CCSDS Management Council (CMC) Chairman from 2007 until 2015.

Mr. Kearney graduated from the University of Kentucky in Electrical Engineering in 1978, and subsequently worked as a contractor at Kennedy Space Center, on control systems for the Space Shuttle launch complex. In 1980, he joined NASA’s Mission Operations Directorate at the Johnson Space Center (JSC), working first in data and communications systems and eventually becoming the Chief Data Architect in Mission Control Houston, as well as serving for a short period as an assistant to Eugene Kranz. In 1994, he joined the ISS Program Office at JSC and negotiated the development of international interfaces between all of the ISS international agencies’ mission control centers, and founded and led the ISS Ground Segment Control Board (GSCB). In 1998 he joined NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) where he served as the Mission Operations Laboratory’s Lead Technology Manager and MSFC’s Data Standards Manager.

During his time at MSFC, Mr. Kearney supported the NASA Headquarters Office of Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) who delegated to him the roles of CCSDS Chairman, CCSDS General Secretary, and NASA Head of Delegation to CCSDS, as well as MSFC Data Standards Manager for the NASA Data Standards Program. Supporting the role of CCSDS in ISO TC20/SC13, he also served as Secretary for that committee. He served in these roles from January 2007 until January 2015. He also supported technical work in several CCSDS working groups, including Delay Tolerant Networking, Voice and Video, Spacecraft Monitor and Control, SANA, and several others. He also served in some other related committees, such as SpaceOps and the Interagency Operations Advisory Group, both of which have a close relationship with CCSDS. During Mr. Kearney’s tenure leading CCSDS, a number of business process improvements were made, including the Management Framework online capabilities and the contract with AIAA for Secretariat services.

Mr. Kearney retired from NASA in January 2015. After retiring, Mr. Kearney continued working in CCSDS on volunteer time, primarily in the Data Archive Working Group. He also volunteered time to support Google in Digital Preservation and taught a continuing education class in Space Standards for the Space Infrastructure Foundation. He has also worked for The Aerospace Corp and consulted for several other aerospace firms. Mike is now fully retired.