Davis Booth Helps Put Rockets in the Sky

By Todd Fuqua

As Davis Booth (BAAS 21) approached his impending graduation from ENMU with a degree in electronic engineering technology, he found he needed to develop another skill – job seeking. “I applied to at least 100 jobs a week, even those I didn’t feel I was qualified for,” Booth said. “Finally, I got a call from the Roman Space Telescope group at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Flight Center.”

Davis Booth

Courtesy Photo

That call led to three interviews and an eventual job offer at the facility in Greenbelt, Maryland. It’s a job he’s already parlayed into a successful career, assisting humanity in exploring the deepest reaches of outer space.

He started work on the Roman Space Telescope, designed to study mysterious dark matter and energy in more than a million galaxies.

You read that right – this telescope will explore more than one million galaxies. Booth’s work centered on instrument command and data handling, ensuring the telescope was in the right place and looking in the right direction after launch.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope under construction at the NASA Goddard Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Davis worked on the instrument command handling units, part of satellite’s avionics.

Courtesy Photo

As exciting as this type of work is, Davis has moved on to a different area of space exploration – rocket technology. Specifically, he’s working on the Vulcan rocket project with United Launch Alliance (ULA) in Cape Canaveral, Florida. He’s a systems engineer for the electrical ground systems, developing upgrades to rocket control systems at Cape Canaveral and Vandenburg Space Force Base in California.

ULA technicians work to put the new Vulcan rocket into place on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida. As a systems engineer, Davis worked on the ground systems that connect to the rocket and separate at launch. This particular rocket is scheduled for its maiden launch in May.

Courtesy Photo

“I’ve always had an interest in rocketry,” Booth said. “I remember watching the Space Shuttle launches as a kid, and I always wanted to be a part of something like that. Also, I have family closer to Cape Canaveral, and my wife wanted to be closer to home.”

He’s still not done learning, having enrolled in graduate school at Johns Hopkins University to pursue a Master of Engineering Management degree. Eventually, he’d like to return to ENMU for a Master of Business Administration degree.

“I decided getting a degree in management will take me to the next level,” he said. “The MBA program at ENMU is affordable, and the education I received to get my bachelor’s degree was top-notch. Hopefully, I’ll have a chance to return to Eastern.”