What is the best part about being an aerospace engineer?
I like the fact that I get to tell people that what I do is actually rocket science!
All jokes aside, the best part can be characterized by a meeting I had with a coworker when we were coming up with an idea for a proposal. We were sitting in a room bouncing ideas off of each other, and one of the elements sought in this proposal was for solutions to push the boundaries of what is possible, which can also be stated plainly as crazy, out-of-this world ideas. We spent about 45 minutes throwing wild sci-fi ideas at each other and then based on this discussion, we spent the next 15 minutes converging these ideas into a singular, cohesive story. Finally, we excitedly arrived at a plan for what our idea for the proposal would be; now we just had to go to our desks and write it out. As I was leaving the room, I turned around and said, “Isn’t it crazy how we get paid to come up with really cool ideas like that?”
I think this story is a good analogue for what it means to be an aerospace engineer: it is our job to deal with awesome things in space that at times border on science fiction, which can’t be said about other careers.
Mark Twain said that the two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you found out why. Did anyone or anything inspire you to become an aerospace engineer?
My decision to become an aerospace engineer wasn’t some sudden moment of clarity like others have had, but once I made the decision early on, I stuck with it.
In 8th grade, I had to research a career path for one of my classes and submit a write-up of it. I think there was some other aspect where we went around the room and told everyone which career we wrote about, but I’m not 100% sure. Anyhow, for mine I initially did not know what to pick. I started with what I was good at, which was math and physics. I pretty quickly figured out that based on this and some other interests I had, engineering would be a great career path. The next question was which discipline to pursue in engineering.
Looking over the different options, it eventually came down to mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering. On the one hand, I loved the idea of building things, inventing, creating that mechanical engineering seemed to be about. But on the other hand, I had always been fascinated by space, inspired by pictures of other planets in the solar system, inspired by astronauts floating in space. That day, for my 8th grade project, my itch to explore proved to be greater than my itch to invent, and from that day I vowed to become an aerospace engineer.
What is the most interesting thing you’ve done this year?
I had the opportunity to go to the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies (AMOS) conference in Maui, Hawaii, which is an incredible conference focused on the topic of space domain awareness (SDA).
As part of my experience, I helped set up a workshop with a lot of key industry personnel from government, industry, and academia, which went well. I attended a young professionals’ conference that preceded the main conference, got to know some really awesome peers, and participated in high-quality discussions. During the actual conference, I had set up meetings with leaders in the space domain awareness field and got to spend valuable time engaging with these leaders. Even going to this conference in the first place was a huge opportunity, but the opportunities to engage with key personnel was a product of the work I’ve been able to do at Advanced Space. I even got a few hours to enjoy myself on the island by playing some golf.
What makes Advanced Space a special place to work?
Advanced Space is a special place to work because while other organizations will allow you to take initiative and ownership, it’s not in the way that Advanced Space does. It took me a year or two to get comfortable enough to do it at Advanced Space but within reason, and because I am pursuing our company mission and values, I’m allowed to do whatever (within reason).
At Advanced Space, picking what you want to do is as easy as telling someone else you want to be involved in something and we find a way to get you to do that. For example, even though I was hired as an engineer, I wanted to be involved in business development. I quickly got thrown in the deep end managing the technical content on a large proposal, but it was what I asked for and I had a lot of fun! Later on, due to my background from graduate school, I wanted to be entirely involved in space situational awareness (SSA); I communicated this desire and then just started doing it and not only did nobody stop me, but everyone helped get me involved in the work I wanted to do. Along the way I wrote my own job description and after doing that work well, my title changed to reflect the added work I took on.
What makes you excited to go to work every day
There are a couple of things that go hand in hand: one is the appreciation and the other is a little cliché, but it is the people. On one hand, it is the appreciation that we get internally and externally for the work we do. Either getting something done before it is asked for and seeing the clear gratitude on your coworker’s face whose life has just been made easier or getting feedback externally about how great of a job we did. This would be impossible without the incredible people that work at Advanced Space. All of them are really great at what they do and I choose to come into the office on a daily basis because I enjoy being around them.
As an SSA specialist, can you explain why it is a crucial field and how you see the growth of this field?
SSA is crucial for several reasons, but it can be summarized as we (as the space industry) want to protect our investments. Even the cheapest satellites can be on the order of millions of dollars; we want to make sure that nothing will destroy or disable them. This can happen either from intentionally bad actors or events/things we just can’t see coming. SSA and SDA deal with preventing both of these things by monitoring objects that could wreak havoc or by discovering more objects/phenomena that we weren’t able to see or understand well before, as well as better predicting what these objects will do. With all that information, we can have a better guarantee that our assets will be safe.
Regarding the growth of this field, with more objects being sent into space, there are exponentially more opportunities for problems to occur, so our technologies also need to improve just as rapidly. Additionally, the expansion of SSA into further domains such as cislunar space and eventually even around other planets makes for some really exciting challenges, which we are already working on at Advanced Space.