Jim Schier is currently the Chief Architect for NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation Program at NASA Headquarters. He leads NASA-wide and international studies defining the evolution of NASA’s space communications networks including the Space Network, Near Earth Network, and Deep Space Network. These networks must evolve to meet the needs of future science missions for Earth Resources, Heliophysics, Astrophysics, and Planetary Sciences as well as future human exploration missions to the Moon, Asteroids, and Mars. He joined NASA in 2004 after 25 years in industry where he worked on civil, defense, intelligence, and commercial space systems. He worked for Northrop Grumman supporting the National Reconnaissance Office where he was responsible for system-of-systems architecting for our nation’s network of reconnaissance satellites. He led system engineering tasks on commercial satellite systems including the Iridium and Thuraya satellite networks. Mr. Schier was Avionics Manager and Chief System Engineer on the International Space Station at Grumman. Prior to this at TRW, Mr. Schier managed flight software development on the MILSTAR Communications Satellite and led integration and verification on materials processing experiments that flew on the Shuttle’s Spacelab 3 mission in 1985. He received a Silver Snoopy award for his work on Spacelab 3, an Administrator’s Group Award from Admiral Truly on behalf of the team that redesigned the Space Station, and numerous other corporate and NASA awards. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science from Purdue and studied Electrical Engineering at West Coast University. In his spare time, he is a docent giving tours to the public at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum at the Udvar-Hazy Center.