The Art of Space Engineering

Integrating a CubeSat is not not as easy as it sounds. In addition to housing all necessary hardware, the design has to meet requirements from the launch provider, account for cabling, and ensure everything is designed such that it can be easily put together and taken apart. The structure for the Phoenix CubeSat was developed and fabricated entirely by the student team with these ideas in mind, bu...

Our roundtable discussion on flight software development and testing continues! In the second half of the discussion, Craig Knoblauch, Vivek Chacko, and I detail our experiences with conducting systems level testing for Phoenix, handling student turnover and recruitment, and how we structured our time with development and testing in the lab while also managing our classes as full time students. Ph...

The flight software is the heart of a spacecraft. It dictates every action that the spacecraft takes. Because of this, it’s critical to ensure that the software is robust, and that it can support the mission in every possible way. Not only is the code itself important, but the way the software is managed and comes together is significant as well. Today’s episode features a roundtable discussion be...

How do you stand out when it comes to looking for a job? How do you get your foot in the door? Further, when you get an offer, how do you evaluate whether it’s really the right job for you, not only in terms of what you do, but also where you go and whom you work with? If you’re interested in hearing career advice when it comes to finding a job, learning how to become successful and more involved...

Studying stars and planetary objects in the ultraviolet can reveal a tremendous amount about the way our universe works. However, developing the instruments to study them is not a trivial thing to do. In this episode, I chat with Dr. Paul Scowen about the design of UV optical systems and how these are also driven by spacecraft interfaces, how these instruments are tested and calibrated, and challe...