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 Age: 26

 Qualifications: BSc Physics with Space Research – University of Birmingham

 MSc Spacecraft Technology and Satellite Communications - UCL

My job is….

Systems Engineer on a Space mission called EarthcARE (so, I am part of the team designing the spacecraft).

Earth Observation affects you every single day, in weather forecasting, climate change models, disaster management, mapping, agriculture and many other areas.  I love working on new and exciting missions that I know are useful to people and having to push the limits of technology to expand our knowledge and horizons.  As part of my job, I do research using the latest ideas from academia and I also do engineering, using mathematical tools to work out orbits or different parts of satellite design.

A systems engineer, I have to make sure that everything will work together and understand the whole spacecraft as we design, then build and test it.  I love working on very different parts of the design at the same time and solving problems.

 Home is…..

St Albans with my younger brother, although it feels that I'm gardly there as I end up all over the place at weekends!

The story so far….

I grew up in Bedfordshire and always had an enthusiastic approach to adventures!  I was lucky that I did a lot of sailing when I was younger with my parents and enjoyed the experiences this brought, especially cross-channel or across the North Sea!  I have always sought interesting experiences; I was a gliding cadet during my A-level years and have recently combined my love of the sea and air with kitesurfing.

I first saw the Milky Way properly when I was about 11.  If you are ever in a light pollution-free place do make sure you look up!  I think that got me hooked and, encouraged by my parents, I haven’t looked back!  I got a telescope when I was 16 and this inspired me to follow my space dream.  At University, I really enjoyed all the Space related modules, but in particular the mission and spacecraft design elements.  University is great at opening your eyes to different topics so that you can specialise later.  So, I did a Masters degree in this area and managed to get a job here, doing exactly what I wanted to do.

Day in the life

My normal working day would be get up at about 7.30, shower, dress, grab smoothie from fridge and drive up to work. 

Most of the work I do is very computer based.  Sometimes I will need to work out complex problems using programming tools, where I can write small programs to solve the problem for me.   I also use programs that will let me look at orbits and the tracks that are made from that orbit on the ground.  For Earth Observation missions this is very handy; I can then work out the contact time the satellite will have with different parts of the Earth, (this is because the satellite may have to link with the large ground stations that are only positioned in certain places of the world) how much of the Earth the satellite can cover in a certain time - this might be useful if the scientific needs require that the satellite sees all parts of the Earth once a day, maybe for pollution monitoring.

I am usually in meetings a few times a week, these are often via video-link with people in our other sites, either in the UK or Europe, but that depends on the project.  Occasionally I have to go to universities to talk to people that I am working on projects with (we have a strong link with universities, particularly in the research departments and aim to try to get their ideas involved in missions), or I will travel to our other sites in the UK.  It is possible for me to need to travel to France or Germany sometimes too.

Other projects at work I am involved in are LunchSat, which is a CubeSat (pretty small) that we are building in our lunchtime (and after work).  We hope to complete it so that it can be launched, but the aim is to have lots of fun and take responsibility for areas we may not normally encounter a work.  I also give talks to visitors and show them round the site.  I love doing this as really it’s a good excuse for me to see what is happening in the clean rooms! 

After work, I tend to book up my time and be very busy!  I like catching up with friends for a meal or drinks, but I also like to go to the gym or swimming.  I also go to a lot of music gigs, often in London and see lots of different bands. 

Pet project

The idea is to get accurate information about clouds and aerosols in the Earths atmosphere which will give us better immediate weather forecasting but also build up a long term model for use in climate change predictions.  The instrument sends a light signal into the atmosphere, some of which is absorbed by particles and molecules, some bounced off in different directions (scattering) and a very small part is reflected back to the part of the instrument that is a detector.  The signal that is reflected back looks very different to the one that was sent.  It will be stretched due to Doppler shift as it changes speed.  It will also have changed shape depending on what is was bounced off, so if it came into contact with a cloud, then the way the signal interacted with the water molecules gives it a different shape to when it bounces off smaller particles in the atmosphere (mainly aerosols).  The two types of scattering that we look at in this situation are called Rayleigh and Mie.  By looking at these signals, we can work out where clouds and aerosols are, how much water is within the cloud and what height the cloud is at.    

Free time

I’m a mixture of action and relaxation!  Whilst I love being with friends over a nice meal I also love being outside and doing things!  At the moment, it’s got to be kitesurfing.  Admittedly, the weather when I was on holiday in Brazil was much warmer than the UK, but I do like the big open beaches here and all the friends I have gained through this sport.  I do like travelling; I've been to Borneo and climbed a 4000m mountain which certainly was an experience!

Last year, my holiday was a real adventure where a group of us kited alomg the coast with a support vehicle doing about 30 km every day and staying at a different place every night for three weeks.  We saw some amazing things and my kitesurfing certainly improved!

There are lots of things I want to try in the future - I'm currently doing a sailing qulification and have plans to kayak across Scotland this summer!

What are your burning ambitions?

To see something I’ve worked on launched into Space!  It may be a while as some missions take 7 – 10 years but just imagine standing near that launch pad!

The best thing is…..

That I love what I do! 

Any regret(s)?

Ultimately, no.  As long as I can learn something from the experience then that is what I will put it down to.  Sometimes I do things that frustrate me, like having forgotten all the French I leant at school but I believe that there is an opportunity to put things right where I have may have made an unwise decision!

What do you love most about science and engineering?

Discovering new things and solutions to problems.  I love seeing how different areas of science and engineering can fit together and help each other, and the satisfaction of working out how to do something new.

Name ONE quirky/crazy fact about you or your job

It costs about £20 000 to send one kilo into space, making a typical satellite a cool £300 million!