Get to know Bill

William (Bill) Jackson was born and raised by Jean and Aubrey Jackson in Beckley, West Virginia. Inspired by President Kennedy's declaration to land a Man on the moon, Bill joined the Hokies of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and began his pursuit of aerospace engineering. A highlight of the Virginia Tech program was a strong emphasis on real world co-op experiences, giving students an opportunity to put their studies into practice. Bill's first and only co-op was at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas thus beginning his four decade career at Nasa.

Starting full time work in 1970, Bill utilized the latest in technology - slide rules, graphing paper and mechanical pencils, to plot out data points and analyzed formulas laying the foundation for Apollo Missions, Skylab and the beginning dreams of a brand new reusable Space Shuttle Program. As technology advanced, so did the depth of the projects. Bill began to focus largely on understanding, reporting and predicting the movement and position of objects within their environment, which led to the development of several projects.

• Automatic Rendezvous, Proximity Operations and Capture Program

• Orbital Debris Radar Program

• Trajectory Sensor Control Development

• Guidance, Navigation and Control Program

The projects were foundational to space shuttle missions, building and ongoing habitation of the International Space Station and the James Webb Space Telescope.

In the late 90s, Bill and his family moved from Houston, Texas to the new Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Facility in Fairmont, West Virginia. Bill spent the last decade of his NASA career in leadership roles at the IV&V Program focused on assuring that the Nation's most critical missions were safe, secure, and reliable. Bill brought his depth of knowledge and experiences across Nasa Missions to this leadership role, guiding the next generation of engineers. These teams were tasked with providing systems and software engineering solutions to a wide scope of ongoing projects. Through Bill's guidance they were able to provide the best products for Nasa Missions, ensuring the highest quality of safety and mission critical software.

In 2008, Bill retired after 40 years of service. Passing on to all those he mentored, his knowledge, perspective and dedication to Nasa’s Vision - Exploring the secrets of the universe for the benefit of all.