#nasaintern

Sending humans to space, returning to the Moon, transforming aircraft, exploring the extraordinary every day: just a few things you are a part of as a NASA intern. Whether you have dreamed of working at the agency your whole life, or discovered a new interest, students at NASA have the opportunity to make real contributions to space exploration and flight. Want to know more? Here are five ways these internships can be rocket fuel for your career:

5. NASA gives you a navigation system. 

Imagine walking into a lab to work side-by-side with NASA scientists, engineers and researchers. As a NASA intern, that’s a daily reality. Mentors are full-time employees who guide and work with students throughout their internship. Space communications intern Nick Sia believes working with a mentor is what makes NASA’s internships different. “Working one-on-one has given me more opportunities to work on different projects,” he says. “It’s the best motivation to do great work.”

4. It’s more than training for launch day. 

As a NASA intern, your work matters. Students are treated as employees, and their ideas are valued. Hands-on assignments allow interns to make real contributions to NASA research and gain experience. For example, Erin Rezich is working in our mobility lab to help design excavation hardware for planetary surfaces such as the Moon. “It’s an incredibly exciting project because these are problems that have to be solved to move planetary exploration forward,” she says.

3. Students develop an array of skills.

Not only do interns improve their technical skills, but they are also building communication and leadership skills. This summer, students are taking part in a two-week immersive design challenge. Participants will design a Ram Air Turbine for NASA Glenn’s 1x1 Supersonic Wind Tunnel. “This design challenge is a unique opportunity to create a design from scratch, which could actually be implemented,” says Woodrow Funk, an electrical testing engineer intern. Projects such as this allow students to work independently, plan, organize and improve time management skills. 

2. Non-technical degrees shoot for the stars. 

NASA also offers many opportunities for students pursuing a career outside of STEM fields. Departments such as human resources, administration, education and communications engage students with hands-on projects. These organizations provide support essential to NASA’s programs and missions. “I was excited that NASA offered opportunities that match my skill set,” says Molly Kearns, a digital media student working with Space Communications and Navigation. Kearns’ first summer at NASA confirmed her passion for graphic design. “What makes the experience so rewarding is seeing content that I created published on social media sites,” she says.

1. Students are surrounded by extraordinary peers. 

Students come to NASA from all over the nation to develop important skills matched to their career goals and expand the way they think about their work. Being surrounded by the best scientists, developers, engineers, mathematicians and communicators is inspiring. NASA’s network is one of graduate fellow Jamesa Stokes’ main motivations. “There are tons of smart and awesome people who work here,” says Stokes, “At the end of the day, they are willing to help anyone who comes and asks for it.”

Are you ready to liftoff your career? Learn more about opportunities for students at NASA here.

Space Walks & Garbage: NASA Co-Op #3 Week One

Space Garbage

Familiarized myself with the Inventory and Stowage Officer (ISO) team this week. They are a console position Mission Control that is in charge of managing the inventory and stowage of all US items on board the International Space Station (ISS). ISO prepares products for upcoming real-time operations and coordinates with other consoles regarding stowage plans. ISO is responsible for directing the crew to consolidate, relocate, audit, and unload a visiting vehicle. ISO as well as the Mission Control consoles’ mantra is to distill all information and procedures to make astronaut’s life easier. This is critical because astronauts have to navigate a lot of factors folks on ground don’t have to like; CO2 clustering around their face due to lack of gravity causing drowsiness, homesickness, isolation and general aggregations of communication challenges.

This week we focused on double checking the list of garbage that will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere in Japanese JAXA’s HTV6 cargo ship. Tediously we reviewed each item so nothing got thrown away that shouldn’t and items that would stink up the station were not missed.

Spacewalk

Conducted on the job training in Mission Control's support room called MPSR  (Multi-Purpose Support Room, pronounced "mipser") during the Friday the Thirteenth spacewalk. With an official Mission Control headset I followed along the astronauts tasks. Astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet spacewalked outside of ISS to update power systems. Upgrading power system of ISS was the overall goal of this month’s suite of Extra Vehicular Activities. Three 428lb Lithium-Ion batteries replaced nickel hydrogen batteries to store power for ISS during this spacewalk. Before the conclusion of the spacewalk engineers in mission control confirmed the batteries’ integration and initial power storage operations.

MPSRs usually use multi-view video with six images of ISS’ exterior and the crew to observe tasks being completed. They listen in on live loops to the Flight Director’s final calls, CAPCOM’s instructions and astronaut’s questions. If necessary MPSR operators can relay to their counterparts in front room Mission Control (FCR-1) information that can be filtered and relayed to Flight.

During the spacewalk there are many glove checks to check for leaks and anomalies. These gloves are impressively engineered to be thick enough to pressurize protect you from space yet gentle enough to allow you to feel space station through them. Astronauts could confirm with Mission Control that batteries were correctly mounted into place by describing drill rotations, torque and light sensor reading on the hand tool.

WAYS TO GET INVOLVED

Intern at NASA, year round, summer, spring or fall semesters.

Co-Op at NASA (Pathways Internship) and get sworn in as a Civil Servant.

Full-time employment at NASA opportunities!

This week's NASA achievements.

This has been an unexpecting week. When the government shutdown, the center was open for 4 hours to shut down everything that was going on, so we had a half day off as we later found out that Congress passed a budget bill. The rest of the week composed of me reading a ton of literature relating to my research with a few safety training’s tossed in the mix. It wasn’t till Friday that I finally got the chance to work on the polymers that I will be working on for this internship. Although it mainly involved me cutting the polymers by 2x2 inches, it was a lot more exciting than sitting in my office and rereading all the literature.

What I got here is a polymer that is coated with aluminum and the coolest thing about this is that it is only 2 microns thick. To give you an idea of how thin that is, a human hair is about 100 microns wide.

From what my mentor told me, the overall goal of our research, me and my partner Ken, is going towards improving solar sail technology. The primary objective of my project is to create a radiation resistant polymer composite, which can be used for the sail and body of the solar sail. The research will have applications across all space vehicles and satellites as it will reduce the weight, thus reducing the cost when NASA launches them into orbit.

After reading all the material I was given on this research, I decided I needed to learn more about the equipment that I will be using, particularly on what they do. I decided to reach out to my mentor Dr. Gordon on this issue as well as ask him for advice about my academic career. First, he did explain what each of piece of equipment I will be using to characterize the polymers does and how they work. After which he gave me this book polymers so I can learn more about polymers. Finally, I asked him that if it would benefit me to take organic chemistry at Cypress College, the community college I attend. The reason I asked him this is because I see a lot of overlap between my major material science and chemistry and I thought about double majoring. Also, I’m noticing a lot of organic chemistry terms in the papers that I’m reading and continuously googling their definitions. He said I should as there is in fact similarities between the two and it would make me more well rounded. Ask for the organic chemistry terms, he said not to worry too much as my research isn’t that heavily reliant on chemistry as I will be casting a coating on the polymers and test them.

Robotics, Simulation & Future: NASA Co-Op #3 Week 8&9

Robotics: Many NASA interns and Co-Ops got hooked on STEM disciplines by participating in FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics. In fact there is a robotics team that meets at NASA Johnson's Space Vehicle Mock Up Facility, the Robonauts. There are four levels for FIRST Robotics; Junior Lego League for ages 6 to 10 (JrFLL), Lego Robotics League for 4th to 8th grade (FLL), FIRST Tech Challenge for 7th to 12th grade (FTC), and FIRST Robotics Competition for 9th to 12th graders (FRC). There are still FIRST Robotics events you can take part in.

Search for FIRST Robotics events pick “Event” and use filters such as dates, program type, county and zip code.Volunteers apply through the Volunteer Information and Matching System and need to pass a background check. Once you are accepted into a position the volunteer coordinator will supply you with the necessary training.

WATCH TEAMS COMPETE LIVE (every Thur - Sat through weekend of April 27th, 2017).

Robot my FRC team made

Robot the team who builds here, Robonauts, made.

This year’s FRC game.

Simulation: A group of us toured the Systems Engineering Simulator (SES) lab a part of NASA Johnson's Robotics Engineering division. Astronauts visit SES to practice docking Orion, capturing the SpaceX Dragon cargo ship, and driving a Mars rover. They simulate realistic physics and scenarios with in house software (Unreal Engine couldn't cut it). The have simulations with the International Space Station, Japanese Cargo Vehicle (HTV), Dragon, Cygnus, Orion and future space exploration vehicles.

Future of NASA: Center Director Ellen Ochoa, Deputy Director Mark Geyer and Associate Director Melanie Saunders hosted an All Hands where they shared with NASA Johnson employees essentially our state of the union. Ochoa described that NASA of priority and interest of the new administration. Per the request of the administration, NASA is conducting a study to weigh the risks of adding a manned crew to Space Launch System and Orion Space Craft's EM1 test. This study is expected to conclude late March.