Andrew “Drew” Demo is the director of Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA) at Ames Research Center, serving in this role since June 2020. Prior to this position, Demo was the deputy director of SMA at Ames. From 2010 to March 2019, he was the Systems Engineering (SE) Branch chief at Ames, where he provided technical leadership for projects including robotic spacecraft, International Space Station (ISS) and lunar lander payloads, and major ground facilities. He also piloted autonomous air vehicles.
Demo conceived and led the development of the SE Toolbox, which is widely used at Ames to support spaceflight projects. He also led the effort to secure the support of the ISS program to retrieve the Life Sciences Glovebox flight hardware, which supports the life science research community aboard the ISS.
Prior to his position as SE branch chief, Demo served a one-year detail at NASA Headquarters in the Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation. He served in a few different roles for this detail, including the Review Board chair of the $900 million lunar lander mission under development for the Science Mission Directorate. He also led the development of an analytical tool to evaluate the cost and schedule risks for the Science Mission Directorate and Exploration Systems Mission Directorate's 20-year mission plans to help inform future mission budgets.
Demo served in the Office of the Chief Engineer at Ames from 2007 to 2010, where he provided technical assessment of the center’s ground and flight projects, evaluating design maturity at milestone reviews, application of technical standards, investigation of failures, and evaluation of verification adequacy and operational readiness. Demo was the primary author in the development of Ames' Class D spacecraft design and environmental test standard, ARC-STD-8070.1, Space Flight System Design and Environmental Test.
Demo joined Ames in 1992 and spent seven years working as a systems engineer, working on the development of various payloads that comprised the Space Station Biological Research Project. He eventually became the lead systems engineer and project manager for the Life Sciences Glovebox project, which was part of an agreement between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, known as JAXA.
Prior to joining Ames, Demo worked at McDonnel Douglas Aerospace Company in Huntington Beach, California, as the Mechanical Group lead for the Titan IV payload fairing. He also worked at Lockheed Space Systems in Sunnyvale, California, as a thermal designer and analyst, helping to lead the design, development and test of a two-phase ammonia pumped-loop external control system concept for the ISS. Demo has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.
