Engineers Create What Never Was

Narration: Various

Transcript:

Scientists discover what there is, but engineers create that which never was. And in my mind, engineers are creators who are almost like artists, but instead of working with art, we’re working with scientific things or mechanical things or electrical tings to try and create something. And that’s what’s so rewarding about working at Godard is that we get these fantastic problems to solve and we have to come up with really creative solutions to basically create something, in this case, a satellite that will do a certain job and do it well. For SDO, the majority of the spacecraft was built here in house; both the instrument module and the spacecraft bus were built here at Goddard. The instruments were made out-of-house, but then they’re brought here to Goddard and integrated into the satellite. Building up to some of our full-systems tests is five years worth of work all coming together in one final test. And to be able to see it function the way you intended is very, very exciting. And it’s a very high point in our careers in building a spacecraft. This mission, we have a requirement to work on it for five years and we want it to work for ten or eleven years, so we really have to know that it’s not only going to work just now, but that we want it to work for a long, long time. We assembled the entire propulsion subsystem here for SDO and in addition to that, all of the instruments and all of the electronics boxes were assembled onto the spacecraft structure, and the entire observatory was put together. So, really at Goddard, we see the culmination of all kinds of work that’s done all around the world. And we all bring it together here and test it end-to-end to make sure the entire system works. Well, I started just interfacing with the instruments, because I’ve really worked on more instruments here at Goddard than I have spacecraft. And so, I was brought in to interface with the three outside instruments that were built outside of Goddard with our spacecraft team here, and that was my job primarily. And then I helped integrate them, and then I got moved into helping integrate the entire spacecraft and making sure that everything was good to go. In engineering, I think, if you have a strong tendency towards science and mathematics, it’s a very good position to be in. I mean, engineering is basically applied physics. You’re taking a lot of physics principles and applying them to real-life reality. Enjoying hands on activities or building things yourself with your hands, it’s a very good lead into becoming an engineer. That’s how I started, working with cars and things, but if you have a real strong desire to do those kinds of things and you apply some science ad mathematics, then you can go ahead and design and build and test your own satellite, which is what we do here. I would just really like to encourage the next generation. I think that’s something that NASA does in a way that only NASA can do. Just to inspire the younger generation, to be interested in math and science and outer space and what’s out there – and just to inspire them. Goddard’s one of those places where you don’t only see the small part of the spacecraft building and the engineering, you have the scientists here too who have the big vision and are able to think about, if I could just do this then I might be able to prove this or I might be able to learn this. That’s what makes being at NASA exciting for me.