Eric Ferguson
Ground Software Manager at Firefly Aerospace
Pasadena, California, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolEric Ferguson is a ground software leader with 11 years of hands-on flight and operations experience, now managing ground software at Firefly Aerospace after a long NASA/JPL career. He has led multi-mission operations and product teams that schedule, command, simulate, and analyze spacecraft across Deep Space Network and Mars relay assets, overseeing multi-million-dollar programs and software that support 20+ missions. Known for combining systems-level spacecraft planning with pragmatic software delivery, he has built high-fidelity simulations, visualization tools (Cosmographia), and novel operations concepts that materially changed spacecraft designs and mission operations. Eric emphasizes cross-team communication, open development practices, and rapid on-call responsiveness to protect mission success while mentoring engineers to stretch beyond perceived limits. Based in Pasadena, he pairs formal aerospace and music-education training with a talent for translating complex mission constraints into operationally testable software and procedures. Colleagues would note his explorer mindset: he seeks unconventional solutions and designs to push space operations toward more autonomous, creative missions.
11 years of coding experience
15 years of employment as a software developer
Master of Science - MS Aerospace Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Master of Science - MS Aerospace Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at University of Southern CaliforniaBS Aerospace Engineering, BS Aerospace Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin
Github Skills (21)
rocket9
simulation9
java9
orbital-mechanics9
discrete-event-simulation9
modeling9
aerospace9
sequence9
space8
jpl8
sequencing8
software-lifecycle8
scheduling7
governance7
schema6
Programming languages (7)
Github contributions (5)
NASA-AMMOS/plandev-modeling-tutorial
Feb 2024 - Jul 2025
Mission model example produced after completing the Aerie modeling tutorial
Contributions:7 PRs, 6 pushes, 4 branches in 1 year 4 months
NASA-AMMOS/aerie-pmc
Jun 2023 - Aug 2024
Aerie Project Management Committee
Contributions:2 PRs, 2 pushes, 1 branch in 1 year 2 months
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