David Stephens

David Stephens develops mission-critical software for NASA planetary science missions. His work spans mission planning, instrument safety, scientific data pipelines, and forward modeling across multiple active flight missions, including Europa Clipper, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART).

He specializes in translating science requirements and objectives into reliable flight and ground software, with experience ranging from spacecraft command validation to large-scale hyperspectral data processing. He is proficient in Python, Java, Linux, NASA’s SPICE toolkit, and other scientific computing tools, and his work sits at the intersection of applied physics and software engineering, supporting mission operations and downstream scientific analysis.