Profile

I work as a digital design engineer which basically means I’m an electronics engineer. I help to design, build and test modules like on board computers which are used to control the satellites we build. I’m currently working on a module which is designed to release a solar array once a spacecraft is lunched and also act as a safety processor in case something goes wrong with the satellite in space – you can’t just send someone up there to fix it so it has to be able to fix itself.

I started off on a graduate scheme which means I’ve been able to work in several different areas in satellite design. I started off in Space Environments which is where the thermal and radiation solutions are designed and I worked on the thermal design for TechDemoSat – a tehcnology demonstration mission which launched last year. I’ve also been involved in several radiation testing campaigns to test how some of the components we use will handle being in such a harsh radiation environment. I then moved to Mission Concepts which is where all the ‘blue sky’ thinking happens, all the ‘what if we could do this..?’ and ‘what would would happen if we tried this..?’ questions which lead to future mission ideas – here I worked on a nanosatellite constellation study. I spent some time in Moscow working on the commissioning (in orbit testing) of two satellites we built with Roscosmos (the Russian space agency) after they launched. I ended up in the On Board Data Handling team where all the electronics modules like computers, data storage, safety processors and payload interface units gets designed and decided this was a pretty cool area to learn more about. So that’s where I am now although I have recently been involved with systems testing on one of our constellations which is due to launch soon – DMC3. Systems testing is when all of the satellite’s components have been put together and the spacecraft is  finally built and you have to test that it functions as you want it to – this is really interesting as you get a real overview of all the different areas involved in satellite design.

We do a lot of outreach events with schools at SSTL. I’d like to build a kit that everyone can use to show kids (and adults) how we design a mission, from choosing the payload and building the satellite to launching it and getting our payload data from space, as well as demonstrating potential applications.