The People of Johnson: Meet David Swartwout, Flagship Flight Software Lead

by Linda Grimm | 2023-10-25

David “Dave” Swartwout has dedicated over 25 years to various teams at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. After working as a software engineer on NASA contracts with Lockheed Martin and United Space Alliance for about four years, Swartwout became a civil servant in the now-dissolved Flight Avionics Division within the FOD (Flight Operations Directorate). He later moved to the International Space Station Program’s Avionics and Software Office, and in 2009 he transferred to the Engineering Directorate’s (EA) Software, Robotics, and Simulation Division. His work has touched nearly every major program since, and today, Swartwout’s primary responsibility involves leading the production of flight software systems for Gateway.

“Johnson is in a very unique position with Gateway, in that we are directly writing a lot of the orbiting outpost’s software,” he said. Swartwout noted that for the International Space Station, Orion, and other major programs, NASA has traditionally hired a prime contractor to write major software components, while EA has provided oversight, requirements, and systems engineering. For Gateway, prime contractors are writing software for the outpost’s individual modules while the teams Swartwout leads are creating vehicle-level software products. Two of these products include the Vehicle Systems Manager, which Swartwout described as the “top-tier” software that will enable both human-directed and autonomous operations, and the certification of a generic software framework to be used across all the Gateway modules.

Professional portrait of a man in a gray suit with a red-checked shirt and red tie, standing in front of an American flag and the NASA flag. — Official portrait of David Swartwout. **Credit: NASA**

Swartwout cited EA’s leading role writing Gateway software as one example of how the directorate has matured as a professional software organization. “We always wrote good software, but we have spent a lot of time pulling in industry best practices and trying to elevate our organization’s capabilities,” he said. “We have really grown our young engineers and given them more opportunities to do hands-on work.” When Swartwout started at Johnson, small teams of six or seven engineers might have the opportunity to write software for an instrument on the space shuttle or the International Space Station – but never an entire system. By contrast, today EA has about 75 software engineers working to develop Gateway’s systems. “The fact that the agency trusts our organization to go do this critical work shows that we’ve had a huge growth in capabilities and says a lot about how the organization has progressed,” he said.

Swartwout dreamed of becoming a pilot or an astronaut from a young age. While he did not pursue either career path, he remained passionate about human spaceflight and space exploration – an interest stoked by his family’s relocation to Houston when Swartwout was in high school. “We lived about two miles outside of Johnson’s back gate, so I grew up in the space community,” he said.

A high school computer science class inspired Swartwout to study computer engineering at Texas A&M University and he interned with several NASA contractors. An internship with McDonnell Douglas gave him an opportunity to write a small piece of code for the International Space Station that remains in place today. Swartwout was hired by Lockheed Martin to write Mission Control Center software when he graduated. He then transitioned to working on the laptops for space station crew members.

Two young men wearing polo shirts sit in front of four computers on top of a folding table in a yellow-lit office room. — David Swartwout and John Carson, STMD Precision Landing Technical Manager, sit in the Morpheus Control Room in the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. **Credit: NASA**

In 2012, Swartwout was tapped to be the software lead for NASA’s Morpheus Project, which developed and tested a prototype planetary lander capable of vertical takeoff and landing. “That was a really exciting project to work on,” he said. “We were the engineering team, the development team, and the operations team.” After that, Swartwout became the software lead for Orion Ascent Abort 2, the test flight of Orion’s launch abort system. He and his team built and tested all of the system software, then had the opportunity to support vehicle integration and flight operations at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Swartwout said those two hands-on assignments were some of his favorite experiences at NASA to date. “But now I'm leading a large team of people to build an orbiting outpost around the Moon, and it’s kind of hard to top that.”

A man kneels inside of the shell of a human spaceflight capsule. — David Swartwout inside the Orion Ascent Abort-2 test vehicle. **Credit: NASA**

Swartwout said that one of the most important lessons he has learned while working at NASA is to ask tough questions, to make sure you understand the why behind a decision, and to speak up if something does not seem right. He also encouraged early-career team members to stay curious about disciplines and fields outside of their own, noting that he has learned a lot about different types of engineering by attending various talks and board meetings. “I don’t really get exposed to thermal or structural engineering on the software side but learning about those disciplines gives me a better understanding of the vehicle we’re trying to build, how everything works together, and the challenges that other organizations may be dealing with,” he said. “Stepping outside of your silo is critical if you want to advance your career.”

A man receives a medal and a certificate. A shorter woman with black hair stands to his right. A black woman in a blue suit hands him the certificate. — David Swartwout, joined by his wife, Tracia, receives the Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal from NASA’s Johnson Space Center Director Vanessa Wyche during the 2022 Agency Honor Awards ceremony. **Credit: NASA/Bill Stafford**

Looking ahead to the future of space exploration, Swartwout jokes that he is not retiring “until we put boots on Mars.” He said the prospect of going back to the Moon and journeying farther into space is exciting. “I’m looking at the work we’re doing on Gateway today and thinking about how I can apply that to Mars. How can we learn what we need to around the Moon to make Mars possible?” he said. “That has me really excited about what’s coming in the future.”