Meet JPL Interns | July 31, 2023
Internship Program Powers Minds and Missions
A bi-coastal, multi-layered collaboration brings Ph.D. student interns to JPL for a unique opportunity to work on cutting-edge battery technology.
The last six months, interns Loleth Robinson and Jonah Wang spent their days in the Electrochemistry Lab at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, testing, and analyzing novel power-storage cells that are pushing the frontiers of battery technology for space missions.
It’s the type of work that needs to be performed with one’s hands: chemicals mixed, cell casings assembled, wiring tinkered with, batteries cycled.
You can’t learn this in a classroom. At JPL, you can.
Gloves extend from a "glove box" where battery electrolytes are fabricated. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | + Expand image
The lab greets visitors with hands: four arm-length inflated rubber gloves extend as if to grab something. These gloves, inside out and ready to be fitted onto human arms, are connected to a “glove box” — a glass case filled with what looks like pharmaceutical bottles and the metal chemical canisters of a cartoon mad scientist.
It’s all very analog, retro even.
Beyond the glove boxes, a sinuous tangle of cables cascades over the edge of a desk, winding between battery cell prototypes and a potentiostat, an electronic device that measures the current and voltage cycled through the batteries. As electricity hums through this web of hardware, data pours into a series of computers, filling spreadsheets that wait to be analyzed.
For Robinson and Wang — both Ph.D. students at The City College of New York, studying chemical engineering with a concentration on the development of advanced battery technologies for space — getting their hands on this equipment in a NASA laboratory is as good as it gets.
“I don't think that I could have gotten a better opportunity anywhere else, working under brilliant scientists,” Wang says.
Wang connects battery cells to a potentiastat machine to cycle and collect data. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | + Expand image
That internship opportunity was the product of a collaboration that spans 3,000 miles and three organizations — JPL, CCNY, and NASA’s MIRO program.
Hands on Hardware, Minds on Missions
From its inception, this collaborative internship program between JPL, MIRO, and CCNY’s Center for Advanced Batteries for Space, now in its third year, sought to bring highly-capable Ph.D. students to JPL to put their minds to work solving problems that are of consequence to actual JPL missions and projects.
“I really wanted to make sure that the students had an opportunity to contribute to something meaningful,” says the interns’ JPL mentor, John-Paul Jones, who helped develop the JPL-MIRO-CCNY internship program. Jones is a battery technologist in the Electrochemical Research, Technology & Engineering Group. He is also the cognizant engineer facilitating the development of batteries for two projects — a lander designed to retrieve samples from Mars and a system of self-guided robots known as CADRE. “So we've tried to make sure that their projects align with something that's mission related.”
Robinson and Wang are focused on the Europa Lander and Venus Aerobot mission concepts — building batteries, performing testing, analyzing data, and meeting with their JPL colleagues to present and defend their work.
“They are right in the middle of cutting-edge battery research,” says Will West, the group supervisor of the Electrochemical Research, Technology, & Engineering, who oversees the interns' work with Jones. “They are being treated on these projects just like the other team members. They're doing experiments, generating data, and interpreting the data as a scientist would. Importantly, they must present and defend their work to the JPL team members. By doing so, they strengthen their scientific rigor and communication skills.”
While current battery technologies, primarily lithium-based, have advanced significantly in efficiency and performance in recent decades, they face certain constraints, including resource scarcity, safety concerns, and performance limitations. The batteries that Robinson and Wang are researching and testing could pave the way for improved energy-storing technologies that are more robust in extreme space-like conditions as well as safer and longer lasting even here on Earth, with potential applications ranging from electric vehicles to grid-scale energy storage.
And what does building and testing batteries actually look like?
First, the students synthesize mixtures of chemicals in the glove box to fabricate a novel battery electrolyte. (An electrolyte is the solution inside a battery that transfers ions between the positive and negative terminals.) They then build the battery cell using little metal cell casings that look like the battery you might find in your wristwatch. This all takes place inside the glove box and a vacuum chamber to avoid exposing dangerous chemicals to open air. Once the cell enclosure is complete, the cell can be removed from the glove box and connected to a set of wires that are fed into a potentiostat. This device measures the characteristics of the battery’s current and voltage and channels that information to a computer, where Robinson and Wang can analyze the data.
“It's amazing getting the hands-on experience,” Robinson says. “It’s an absolutely different experience from what I've seen in the industry and, of course, with just regular school research projects.”
Robinson mixes chemicals to create a battery electrolyte formula for testing. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | + Expand image
Beyond building, testing, and analyzing battery cells, Robinson and Wang are also scouring related scientific literature to identify promising applications for future battery technologies.
For an internship, it’s no walk in the park.
“It's definitely a lot of hard work,” Wang says. “There's a really steep learning curve. I've learned a lot in a really short period of time. It's really amazing to be able to learn from actual research scientists who are trained in their fields.”
And while interns are not expected to have the depth of knowledge and experience that seasoned veterans do, Jones and West say they want to prepare the students for their paths in rigorous fields of research.
“Obviously we help them,” Jones says. “But I really want them to have some kind of ownership.”
Rob Messinger, the interns’ doctoral advisor, is an associate professor of chemical engineering at The City College of New York and the director of CCNY’s Center for Advanced Batteries for Space, a lab that focuses on upstream and emerging battery chemistries specifically geared toward powering spacecraft.
Messinger says the partnership with JPL has given the students in his program at CCNY an invaluable experience that he could not have created in the lab or classroom.
“It's difficult to even state or articulate the impact that this [internship program] has on CCNY students — scientifically, professionally, and personally,” Messinger says. “They have the opportunity to go into a NASA lab and directly work on NASA-relevant problems. But I think maybe even more valuable to the students is the opportunity to be mentored and trained by JPL scientists and engineers that have accumulated decades of experience.”
The Power Behind the Program
While the internship program is now humming along in its third year, only a few years ago it was just an idea.
In 2019, Jones received an email from Messinger out of the blue about collaborating on a rechargeable aluminum-graphite battery technology; his interest was piqued. As he read further, Jones saw the opportunity to create a unique internship program at JPL and jumped at the opportunity.
Jones had started at JPL in 2013 as an intern, eventually moving on to a Caltech postdoc stint before landing a full-time position back at the Laboratory. This was his chance to pay it forward.
Messinger thought that some of the research his doctoral students had been conducting in his lab at CCNY could be of interest to JPL.
“We had reason to believe, based on some preliminary data and prior work, that this particular aluminum-graphite technology could deliver high power at low temperatures,” Messinger says. “And so that was the initial hook to work with JPL — because those characteristics could potentially be useful for space.”
With Jones and group supervisor Will West on board at JPL, Messinger submitted a proposal to the MIRO funding opportunity made available by NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement. MIRO, which stands for MUREP Institutional Research Opportunity, was established to strengthen and develop the research capacity and infrastructure of minority-serving institutions in areas of direct alignment with NASA’s missions.
“I long had the idea of working with JPL,” Messinger says. “And then MIRO was the perfect funding source to enable this unique and strategic partnership.”
After some months of planning, Messinger and Jones launched the JPL-CCNY internship program, which was originally set to begin during the summer of 2020. The timeline, however, was derailed due to the pandemic, but after reworking their approach to accommodate remote collaboration, Jones and Messinger put their first intern, Brendan Hawkins, to work in the summer of 2021.
“It was really challenging to try to teach somebody how to build a battery in a lab from 3,000 miles away,” Jones says.
Fortunately, Hawkins was able to later come to JPL in person and gain that valuable hands-on experience for a few months at the end of the program. Since then, the program has hit the ground running, welcoming two other interns, Harrison Asare and Brian Chen, prior to Wang and Robinson in early 2023.
West says the program is a boon to all involved.
“The NASA MIRO program is funding the grad students, and they're working on projects that we assign here at JPL. We are so impressed with the huge contributions they’ve made to the projects,” West says. “So it's a huge win for JPL and NASA. And I would say certainly a win for the grad students to have this experience and a win for CCNY who is now getting these well-trained grad students back.”
Novel Energy Sources
For their part, the JPL staff say they have benefited immensely from the experience with their interns. West says Robinson and Wang’s infusion of ideas has been invaluable to his laboratory.
“I have been amazed by how quickly they acclimate to this high-intensity environment and contribute almost immediately,” West says. “They bring new ideas and fresh perspectives that have resulted in several journal manuscripts.”
Jones says collaborating with the interns has made him a better engineer.
“I think that the best way you learn something is to try to teach it to somebody else,” Jones says. “And I feel like I've learned an awful lot from this.”
Back in New York, the interns bring renewed energy and practical experience to the Center for Advanced Batteries for Space at CCNY.
“The collaboration with JPL has taken a lot of the research and development that we do here at CCNY, and it has given it life, it has given it applications that are exciting — it puts wind under our wings,” Messinger says.
Charged Up to Take Flight
For Robinson and Wang, neither knows exactly where their careers will take them, but both are certain this experience has opened doors.
“My mentors have tried to teach me how to be a better scientific researcher and how to really design and also do experiments,” Wang says. “That's something that might not show up on paper. Being able to say I worked at NASA is great, but I think actually learning the kind of stuff that it takes to do good experiments — that’s what’s really valuable.”
Robinson laughed recalling the moment she decided to pursue this course of study. She attended Messinger's presentation about his research program and never forgot his closing remarks.
“[Messinger] said the two coolest things to work on are dinosaurs or outer space, and dinosaurs are extinct. So take the second-best thing.”
Robinson, who was born in the U.S. but grew up primarily in Costa Rica, says she could have never imagined where that “second best thing” could take her — from a Ph.D. in New York City to working on spacecraft in Southern California to who-knows-what next.
“[Younger] me would have never thought that I'd be working in a NASA internship and doing a Ph.D. in chemical engineering,” Robinson says. “I couldn't even imagine that this was possible.”
The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of STEM Engagement’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.
The MUREP Institutional Research Opportunity, or MIRO, was established to strengthen and develop the research capacity and infrastructure of Minority Serving Institutions in areas of strategic importance and value to NASA’s mission and national priorities. MIRO works with 15 Minority Serving Institutions to offer awards that aim to support bright minds in STEM, while also enhancing the capability of institutions to perform NASA-related research and education.
The Minority University Research and Education Project, or MUREP, is a larger program through which the NASA Office of STEM Engagement engages underrepresented populations and minority-serving institutions through a wide variety of initiatives.
Career opportunities in STEM and beyond can be found online at jpl.jobs. Learn more about careers and life at JPL on LinkedIn and by following @nasajplcareers on Instagram.
TAGS: College, University, Internships, Opportunities, College Students, MSP, MIRO, MUREP, CCNY
Meet JPL Interns | September 13, 2018
Imaging Planets Beyond Our Solar System
The Starshade project aims to do pretty much what the name suggests: suppress the light from distant stars so scientists can learn more about the planets that surround them – including whether they’re likely to support life. In practice, it requires building a giant, precisely shaped structure that can unfurl from a relatively tiny package and fly in perfect sequence with a space telescope. Interns have been key to making the idea a reality. The team has brought in more than 40 interns in the past seven years. We already caught up with three-time Starshade intern Christopher Esquer-Rosas, who is using his origami skills to help a full-scale model of the giant sunflower-shaped structure unfurl. Meanwhile, intern Allison Ayad, a mechanical engineering student at Pasadena City College, is creating a working miniature model to narrow in on the design. Fellow intern Evan Kramer met up with Ayad to find out how she’s contributing to the project and how she’s bringing what she’s learning back to school.
Meet JPL Interns
Read stories from interns pushing the boundaries of space exploration and science at the leading center for robotic exploration of the solar system.
What are you working on at JPL?
I'm working on a project called Starshade, which is a 26-meter diameter, flower-shaped structure we want to send to space to help us get images of exoplanets, [planets outside our solar system]. With these images, we could learn more about exoplanets and see if they could potentially harbor life.
So Starshade is a sort of spacecraft?
Yeah, it is! Starshade would fly out and position itself between a space telescope and a star. Its shape would suppress the light from the star so the spacecraft could get direct images of the exoplanets around it. It's similar to when you try to take a picture outside, and the Sun washes out the image. If you block the light from the Sun, then you can see everything in more detail. That's pretty much what Starshade would do.
What’s a typical day like for you?
Every day is very different. What I am working on is making a mini, fully deployable Starshade for interactive purposes, so we can show all the different stages of deployment. It will sort of be the first of its kind.
When I come in, I usually do work on my computer with [software] like Solidworks. Then, I do a lot of rapid prototyping with the use of 3D printers and laser cutters to test out all the little, moving components that are going into the real model.
I spend some of my time helping with the big structure that's out here. [She points to the warehouse-like space where the team is assembling a full-scale version of Starshade, which is about the size of a baseball diamond fully unfurled.] But most of the time, I'm working on the mini one. At least once a day, I’ll talk with my mentor, David Webb, about the ideas that I have on how to make things work. We'll bounce ideas off each other, then I'll have stuff to think about for the next day.
Ayad stands under the support structure for the full-scale model of Starshade. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Evan Kramer | + Expand image
What's been the most JPL- or NASA-unique experience you've had so far?
I’ve been here for a year and a half now, and I think the Starshade lab is the coolest at JPL, but I'm a little bit biased. It's really cool because we have a bunch of prototypes everywhere, so you get to see what Starshade would look like in real life. And there are a bunch of interactive models that you can play with to see all the different deployment stages.
How do you think you're contributing to NASA/JPL missions and science?
The full Starshade isn’t really finished being designed yet, so a lot of the problems that [the team that is building the full-scale model] is facing, I'm also facing with the mini one. The ideas that I'm thinking through could potentially help with the real flight-model design.
How has the work you’ve done here influenced you back at school?
When I first started interning here, I actually didn't have a lot of the core class requirements [for my major] done. So a lot of the terms and concepts that people were using at JPL were still new to me. Then when I took the classes, all [the lessons from my internship] came back, and I was like, whoa, I already kind of learned this stuff and got a hands-on approach to it. I'm a very hands-on learner, so having that previous experience and then learning more of the math behind it helped with that learning process.
If you could travel to any place in space, where would you go? And what would you do there?
I’d like to go to Mars just because we're so close to doing it. It'd be cool to see what's there. I personally think there's a really good chance there was once life on Mars. If I could go and see for myself, that would be pretty awesome.
Explore JPL’s summer and year-round internship programs and apply at: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/intern
The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of Education’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.
TAGS: Women in STEM, Internships, Interns, Students, College, STEM, Opportunities, Starshade, Exoplanets, Engineering, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Universe
Meet JPL Interns | September 6, 2018
Shining Light on the Science of Earth’s Auroras
There is still a lot of mystery around what exactly causes aurora, the swirling spectacles of light that grace Earth’s southern and northern high-latitude skies. So, this summer, Jasmine Cameron, a JPL intern and computer science major at Howard University, helped push aurora science further by developing an algorithm to detect the phenomena in video taken from a weather balloon. Fellow intern Evan Kramer caught up with Cameron to ask how learning about aurora might help the average person and what it’s like to work with NASA scientists and engineers.
What are you working on at JPL?
My project is in computer science. What we’re trying to do is image aurora, so your northern and southern lights, during the day time. A near-infrared camera goes up on a weather balloon and takes a video of the sky at up to 30 frames per second. It stores the collected data and sends back video containing auroras. What we want to do is develop an efficient, real-time algorithm based on machine learning technology that can identify frames with aurora in them so that we can collect science data about these phenomena. Our algorithm needs to give the scientists as many true-positives, or useful images with auroras in them, as possible so they can better understand what they are. It also needs to fit on the computer aboard the balloon so that it will be power efficient and high performance.
Meet JPL Interns
Read stories from interns pushing the boundaries of space exploration and science at the leading center for robotic exploration of the solar system.
How might understanding aurora help the average person one day?
Auroras are the result of a complicated interaction between the Sun and Earth. This interaction is a fundamental cosmic process that will affect space weather, which in turn will affect our daily life in terms of radiation exposure, satellite and radio communication, power systems, and so on. Studying aurora could help us better understand and forecast space weather.
What’s a typical day like for you?
I come in and check my email to see if my mentor has sent me any new data to process. Then I’ll get to work on algorithms I think would work as a detection system for identifying the presence of aurora in images. There are a lot of different machine-learning algorithms out there that we can test.
How does the algorithm work?
The algorithm is based on machine learning technology. You create a model with unknown parameters. You then take the data and set it up between training data and testing data. Your training data is a bunch of base images with aurora in them and defined parameters used to detect aurora. Then, you develop the algorithm to look for those parameters in your test data, and it will conclude if there is an aurora or not in each of the test images. Then, you use a validation directory with only true-positives to compare the images in your test data that were identified as having aurora in them to actual aurora images to see how well your algorithm is working. My job is to see what algorithm works the best in identifying aurora in the test images.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Evan Kramer | + Expand image
Did you have to do any research or special preparation before you started on the project?
Yes, I had to read a lot, especially about the motivations behind why we’re doing this work and how we’re going to accomplish our goals. I had to read the technical documentation about different algorithms and different systems that are used to process the images and identify aurora. There’s definitely a lot of reading involved every day, and I frequently ask the people I work with questions.
What’s the most JPL- or NASA-unique experience you’ve had so far?
I got to see different hardware and test beds and even mission control where they control the Deep Space Network, [a system of antennas around the world that are used to communicate with spacecraft]. That was really cool.
What about the people here? What’s the environment like at JPL?
Everybody is kind of a nerd. Usually when I’m talking about my internship experience to friends back home, I have to edit out things I’d normally say because most of them would find it boring, but here I’m frequently asked what I work on in a genuine way. I know I can always ask anyone anything about their project and for help on my own project. It’s a great environment and I’m learning a lot.
How do you feel you’re contributing to NASA/JPL missions and science?
Just being able to do this type of work on aurora detection – it has never been done before. Being able to contribute to making data collection and analysis more efficient makes scientists’ lives a lot easier and helps us learn more about these phenomena.
If you could travel to any place in space, where would you go and what would you do there?
A black hole, just to see what happens. I’d want to see how destructive it is and how dark it is.
This Q&A is part of an ongoing series highlighting the stories and experiences of students and faculty who came to JPL as part of the laboratory's collaboration with historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs. › Read more from the series
The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of STEM Engagement’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.
Career opportunities in STEM and beyond can be found online at jpl.jobs. Learn more about careers and life at JPL on LinkedIn and by following @nasajplcareers on Instagram.
TAGS: Women in STEM, Internships, Interns, College, Students, Opportunities, Science, Careers, Black History Month, HBCU, Earth Science, Earth, Women at NASA
Meet JPL Interns | July 24, 2018
Preparing to See the Unseen on Jupiter's Moon Europa
A radar on NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will be key to finding out if Jupiter's moon Europa is indeed an ocean world, so JPL intern Zachary Luppen is creating ways to test it to perfection. We caught up with Luppen, an astronomy and physics major from the University of Iowa, to find out how he’s helping the team peer below the icy moon’s surface and to hear about his recent brushes with space stardom.
What are you working on at JPL?
I'm working on the integration, testing and automation of the REASON instrument for the Europa Clipper mission. REASON is a radar instrument that will look within the icy crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa to look for water pockets, characterize the moon’s surface and see if we can confirm that there’s an ocean below its surface.
How does the radar work and why is it important for the mission?
The radar performs what’s called interferometry by sending out and receiving signals that create measurable interference patterns. Based on what signal bounces back, we can figure out the composition of the crust.
The radar probably first and foremost is trying to answer whether the moon has an ocean, and will probably help with determining a landing site for a potential future lander. So the Europa Clipper orbiter is sort of this preliminary study for eventually putting something on the surface. The REASON instrument is going to study a large portion of the moon’s surface and look for a landing spot, possibly where the ice is thinnest so we will not have to drill too deep to find water.
Why is NASA especially interested in Europa as a destination to explore?
Europa is a very interesting moon because it's way out at Jupiter, so it's far away from the Sun, and yet, scientists have data to support the notion that it might have liquid water. What allows it to have this water below its icy crust and how deep is that water? How thick is the icy crust? And if we were to drill into the crust, is there the potential to find life below it? Europa very quickly becomes a moon that can transform society on Earth, if we happened to find extraterrestrial life there.
What’s an average day like for you?
A lot of the work that I do involves programming in a language called Python. The transmitter boards, which are used to generate the signals that would propagate downwards toward Europa, are currently being built at the University of Iowa, and once we get them here at JPL, we're going to have to test them nonstop, see how we can break them, see how we can improve them. Whatever we need to do to make sure we operate perfectly during the mission. A lot of my work involves writing the software that's going to be doing this testing. Other than that, I've been writing programs called GUIs, graphical user interfaces, to interact with the instruments without having to actually touch them. So if you’re not able to go into the cleanroom during testing, then you can just use your computer to type commands.
How did you get involved in the project?
I’m a student at the University of Iowa and our team has been working on the transmitter boards for the past couple of years. I was dying to get involved in spacecraft and by the end of my sophomore year, I finally had the opportunity to do so because I got a grant from the university to pay for research. I started off simply cleaning rooms and putting away parts, which was pretty menial, however, I did learn what the parts were and how to quickly blow them up if you don't use them properly. Then I worked my way up to kitting parts, which is organizing them for our soldering technician. This doesn't sound like a rigorous job, but it's the first task that needs to be done to make a circuit board, and if it's not done properly, nothing else matters because the circuit boards won’t work. So I just kept working on that throughout my junior year and now I'm out here interning.
Meet JPL Interns
Read stories from interns pushing the boundaries of space exploration and science at the leading center for robotic exploration of the solar system.
Your question was chosen to be broadcast as part of a downlink for NASA interns with astronauts on the International Space Station. What does it mean to know that your question is going to space?
Words that I spoke are going to be shown to astronauts. Pixels showing me and audio from my mouth will be appearing on the International Space Station, so I'm almost riding on the station. In a sense, my dream of going to space is another step toward coming true
Have you had any other JPL or NASA unique experience of note?
I got to meet astronaut Kate Rubins when she visited JPL recently. That was the first time that I'd ever met an astronaut. And I was just like, oh my gosh, I was shaking. Someone told me I could go up and shake her hand and I was like, really, I'm allowed to do that?! And I did. And then I got her autograph afterward.
How do you feel you're contributing to NASA/JPL missions and science?
The programming work I’m doing is contributing directly to the testing phase of the Europa mission, which is cool in itself. But also just trying to make as many people aware as possible that the science is going on, that it's worth doing and worth finding out, especially if we were to find life on Europa. That changes humanity forever!
If you could travel to any place in space, where would you go and what would you do there?
Oh my god. The planetary system around the star TRAPPIST-1 is fascinating. The ISS is fascinating. Mars is Mars. Europa is Europa. This is a hard question. I guess, in order to further science, I’d go to Europa. If I could just go to Europa and see if there's life, well then, we’d answer one of the biggest questions ever asked.
Explore JPL’s summer and year-round internship programs and apply at: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/intern
The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of Education’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.
TAGS: Interns, Internships, Higher Education, College, Opportunities, STEM, engineering, Europa Clipper, Europa, Ocean Worlds
Meet JPL Interns | July 24, 2018
Starting From the Ground Up
Seeing what it takes to build a mission from the ground up, JPL intern Joshua Gaston is turning a far-out idea into reality as part of the lab’s project formulation team. The aerospace engineering student from Tuskegee University explains how he hopes to play a role in sending tiny satellites, called CubeSats, beyond Earth’s gravity and what it’s like to spitball ideas with rocket scientists.
What are you working on at JPL?
I'm working on a proposal to send a bunch of CubeSats, [small satellites], to places beyond Earth’s gravity in our solar system. I'm the configurations and power guy. The team will tell me how they want the CubeSat configured. I research it, figure out if it's going to work and, if it does, I’ll set it up in CAD, [computer-aided design], software. So I'm pretty much the CAD guy, if you want to be basic.
You’re part of the project formulation team that’s coming up with these new mission ideas. What is that like?
This is sort of like step one. We have this idea and we need to figure out how to make it happen, so I'm just seeing how everything works from the very bottom.
I guess I never really thought about how they come up with these mission ideas and figure out if they’re going to work or not. They have teams of people who come together in one room and say, hey this won't work, this is why. Let's do it this way. And another person’s like, that won't work, but if it was adjusted a little bit ... It's just so cool to sit in through that and see all these smart people come together.
What is the most JPL or NASA unique experience you've had so far?
At my last internship, I kind of felt like I was the low leaf, like the roots on a tree. I wasn't running and getting coffee or anything, but everybody had doctorates and I felt like I couldn't ask them anything. But here, you can just run up to someone, ask them something and they're just so open about it, just open to talk.
Meet JPL Interns
Read stories from interns pushing the boundaries of space exploration and science at the leading center for robotic exploration of the solar system.
What's your ultimate career goal?
The ultimate, cross fingers, knock on wood is I want to become an astronaut. I feel like that's every kid's dream. But if I could make it, that would be great. After that is working at NASA. So either-or [laughs].
How do you think you're contributing to NASA/JPL missions and science?
Well, at first I felt like I wasn’t contributing to anything until someone was like, Oh Josh, you’re doing such a great job.” It was then that I realized the configuration is an essential part to the proposal stage. It seems like a small role, but at the same time, it’s a tremendous task. Without it, it would be hard to have a compelling case for the people who review the mission.
And in the bigger picture, since it's the beginning of the CubeSat wave, if this proposal goes all the way through, then I will feel amazing that I participated in the start of this journey, that my work contributed toward a new wave of satellites.
If you could travel anywhere in space, where would you go and what would you do there?
If I could go anywhere that I would likely survive, I would probably go to the Andromeda Galaxy. But if I could go anywhere and only possibly survive, I would go inside a black hole, just to see it. I know that going in the gravitational forces would be too intense and possibly kill me on the spot. So, I’ll just say that if there was a possibility that I could survive and make it out, then I’d want to go inside a black hole.
This Q&A is part of an ongoing series highlighting the stories and experiences of students and faculty who came to JPL as part of the laboratory's collaboration with historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs. › Read more from the series
The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of STEM Engagement’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.
Career opportunities in STEM and beyond can be found online at jpl.jobs. Learn more about careers and life at JPL on LinkedIn and by following @nasajplcareers on Instagram.
TAGS: Interns, Internships, College, Higher Education, Student Programs, STEM, Engineering, Opportunities, Black History Month, HBCU
Meet JPL Interns | July 24, 2018
Making Leaps in Extreme Robotics
Roll aside, wheeled rovers! Sawyer Elliott is developing a cube-shaped rolling robot to go where no rover has gone before. Find out how the NASA Space Technology Research Fellow from Cornell University is fashioning a rover for extreme environments, what inspired him to go into aerospace engineering, and where he most wants to travel in space.
What are you working on at JPL?
I work on extreme terrain mobility, so being able to maneuver through terrains that traditional rovers have a tough time traversing.
What does that entail?
I work on a rover that, instead of driving around with wheels like traditional rovers, hops or rolls by itself and is actually a cube or tetrahedron. So we look at how well it can do this rolling motion, how power-efficient it is, and its capabilities in different environments.
What kinds of environments are we talking about?
Microgravity environments [where gravity is very weak, such as on asteroids and comets] are a big one because it's difficult for wheeled rovers to maneuver through those types of environments. Also places that are extremely rocky, where it's difficult for wheeled rovers to get into.
What’s an average day like for you?
I do a lot of analyses on the rover, looking at the dynamics and the controls. I look at how it interacts with the environment and make sure my controllers work as expected and that the math I've done is reasonable. It’s a lot of sitting in front of simulations. But in the end, it's nice because I get to see the robustness of the controllers and if they actually work in a realistic environment.
Meet JPL Interns
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How do you feel you're contributing overall to NASA/JPL missions and science?
The hope is that my work is advancing the capabilities of not only this type of rover architecture – so how we do our cube-type rolling – but also controls and planning for rovers in general, making them more autonomous, making the planning better and our modeling of the systems better.
What got you interested in engineering in the first place?
I think it was mostly my father. We traveled a lot to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and I got to see the Saturn V there. Anyone who has seen the Saturn V loves rockets because it's amazing. After that, I was basically sold. I got my undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering and now I am getting my graduate degree in aerospace engineering. I'm only getting more and more interested as I go, so I guess that's a good sign.
What's your ultimate career goal?
My ultimate goal would be to be a senior researcher or a senior fellow at some place like JPL or another NASA center or research center.
OK, now for the fun question: If you could travel to any place in space, where would you go and what would you do there?
I think going to a microgravity environment would be most fun. It's cool to explore places that have crazy environments, but just going to any microgravity environment, where you could go ballistic just by jumping or leaping, that sounds so fun to me, to complete half an orbit around an asteroid.
Explore JPL’s summer and year-round internship programs and apply at: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/intern
The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of Education’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.
TAGS: Interns, Internships, College, Higher Education, Student Programs, Opportunities, Engineering, Robotics, Rovers
Meet JPL Interns | July 24, 2018
Taking Space Flight Farther
JPL intern Camille V. Yoke is building a thruster like the one that might send astronauts to Mars in the future. The University of South Carolina physics major shares how she’s shaping the future of electric propulsion and why she’s a fan of the “Mark Watney lifestyle.”
What are you working on at JPL?
I am working on a thruster – which is what makes a spacecraft accelerate while it's in the vacuum of space – similar to one that we could ultimately use on either a manned mission to Mars, a cargo mission to Mars, or other future manned missions. I am building what's called a cathode. It goes into an electric propulsion thruster and creates a plume of plasma. My job this summer is to test that plasma and see whether or not we can improve upon previous generations of the same technology.
Meet JPL Interns
Read stories from interns pushing the boundaries of space exploration and science at the leading center for robotic exploration of the solar system.
What's a typical day like for you?
I have an office in a lab. Usually, in the morning, I talk with my mentor about the data that I've collected the day before. Then I either continue collecting data of the same variety or we decide that we need something new. The lab that I work in has three very small vacuum chambers, in which we create a plasma plume. I measure things like the density and temperature of the plasma at different positions. Then, I study the data to see what I’ve found.
What have you found out so far?
The technology I work on is the third-generation cathode for this thruster. The major difference between the third and the second generation is that we're giving the cathode extra fuel in different places. We actually learned today that it might be causing the temperature of the thruster to be much lower than it was previously, which is probably good news – but we don't know yet. We're going to launch into doing more rigorous tests and figure out whether or not that's a mistake in how we were testing it or if that's a pattern of this new technology.
What is electric propulsion and what makes it different than fuel propulsion? Why is it being considered for Mars and manned missions, specifically?
Electric propulsion is really good for deep space missions, meaning those going any farther than the Moon, because it can run for many thousands of hours. It requires power to run an electric thruster, which used to be an issue for NASA, but now large solar arrays are used on spacecraft to generate a lot of power. So for many proposed thrusters, the only limiting factor is the fuel. A main advantage of electric thrusters over chemical propulsion is that less fuel is required, so it’s less expensive to get these thrusters into space. This could be important for manned missions in the solar system, such as a manned mission to Mars, which may require lots of cargo shipments.
How do you think you're contributing to NASA missions and science?
Today there was a brief period in which I knew something that nobody else on the planet knew – for 20 minutes before I went and told my boss. You feel like you're contributing when you know that you have discovered something new. I'm a student, so I'm learning and I think that's an important contribution, too. Learning about all these technologies in order to advance them forward when the current experts retire or leave is really important.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Kim Orr | + Expand image
If you could travel to any place in space, where would you go and what would you do there?
I've read a lot about potential floating cities to study Venus, and those always seem really neat. I'm also a fan of the Mark Watney style of life [in “The Martian”], where you're stranded on a planet somewhere and the only thing between you and death is your own ability to work through problems and engineer things on a shoestring. There's this sign in my lab that reads, "Danger, high voltage" and there’s another that reads, “There's nitrogen in this room. Two breaths of pure nitrogen will knock you out.” That’s why I really like applied physics; if you do it wrong, it will kill you. So If I ended up in a situation like Mark Watney’s on a floating city on Venus, I wouldn't complain. It would be pretty cool.
Explore JPL’s summer and year-round internship programs and apply at: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/intern
The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of Education’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.
TAGS: Women in STEM, Interns, Internships, College, Higher Education, Opportunities, STEM, Science, Engineering, Physics, Women at NASA