Soaring To New Heights: Southern Launch Work Experience
The Southern Launch team recently welcome St Joseph’s School Year 10 student Triana Inglis into our Adelaide headquarters. Triana came on board to explore the exciting engineering career opportunities presented to the next generation of space enthusiasts.
During her week with the Launch Team, Triana kept a journal, reflecting on what she learned and if the experience inspired her to continue her journey of working in astrophysics.
Work Experience Student Triana Inglis with Lewis McCluskey and Nathan Drummond from Southern Launch.
Hi, I am Triana from St Joseph’s School in Port Lincoln. I was selected to participate in work experience at Southern Launch for four days. This opportunity helped me to explore the different career paths I can go down in the line of science and physics. Throughout the week, I spent time with the different professions of engineering that are abundant at Southern Launch.
Monday:
On Monday, I got a great tour of the facility and was briefly introduced to some of the team before we entered a meeting where I met the entire team, in-person and online, via Microsoft Teams. I had to do a little introduction in the meeting, where all eyes were on me, even the ones staring back at me on camera. I talked a little bit about my interest in astrophysics, how happy I was to get such an impressive work experience, and how wonderful it was that I’m Southern Launch’s first-ever work experience student! As menacing as it seemed at first, the team were all very inviting and caring. After the meeting, I was familiarised with what Southern Launch does as a company. I got settled into my desk and was tasked with a few projects to do throughout my time at the office, including documenting what I was to learn from the engineers.
Tuesday:
On Tuesday, I spent the whole day with the Avionics team, going through what they do, and how it correlates to the electronics fitted in rockets. I was shown some of the different circuits that they are familiar with and what they help do. I was also introduced to the wonderful world of the names of micro-controllers and equipment. I was shown ‘beagle bones’ and a ‘raspberry pi’, even a ‘bread board’, needless to say, these names had me smiling the whole time. Throughout the day I made numerous circuits, all ranging in difficulty, they also got me on the computer to code more difficult circuits. I was easily entertained by making the LED lights alternate turning on/off with the coding. I liked the fact that with Avionics the results and outcomes are almost instant.
Wednesday:
I spent Wednesday morning with the Aerospace team. They went through what they do and how it applies to how the rocket works and performs. They introduced me to their work in calculating rocket launches, including but not limited to the trajectory, possible ground impact points, and collision on launch avoidance. I also learnt of the usefulness of box and whisker graphs and the Aerospace Engineers’ love of them. Who thought you would use a random graph from maths class in real life, maybe all my maths teachers were right? It was fun with the Aerospace team; they share my interest in Astrophysics and helped me to understand some concepts that had previously confused me.
Learning to calculate rocket launch trajectories with the Aerospace team.
I spent Wednesday afternoon with the Structural team. They threw me into the deep end with high-level mathematics. The cantilever with a fixed side nearly drowned me! But after some explaining and a maths program, because no one had a calculator, I started to float to the top. Even though I felt their mathematics had left me with some water in my lungs, I slowly started to get the hang of their calculations. Only for the bending stress though, don’t ask me to calculate deflection! After the maths part was out the way, they talked about other aspects of being a Structural Engineer. For instance, how to achieve stiffness while still having the same area to limit unnecessary weight, how things need to be airtight to avoid electronics breaking, it was then slowly but surely, I started to see the appeal of being a Structural Engineer, but my start had some growing pains.
Thursday:
On Thursday, I spent the morning with the Regulatory Coordinator, talking about the permits and laws for launching rockets and space in general. It was quite interesting because I had never thought about how many laws there were relating to space, for example, the Karman line and how it is an attempt to define a boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space. I learnt that the Outer Space Treaty bans weapons from being stationed in space, prohibits military activities in space, and makes sure space is for everyone, meaning no country can claim any celestial body for themselves. This law was brought into domestic Australian law during the Space (Launches and Returns) act in 2018. The Regulatory Coordinator insisted that this wasn’t as impressive or as interesting as what the Engineers do, but he’s wrong, for me, the treaties and laws were fascinating and incredible to think about.
Conclusion:
So, the question I ask myself is, after a week with the Southern Launch team, do I still want to work in Astrophysics?
After this week I’m so happy I chose to apply for work experience here. This has made my choice of career so much harder. I used to be set on Astrophysics but now I actually see the appeal of being an Engineer! These people do amazing work and don’t get recognised much for it. Following this work experience, I’ve been put at ease about a couple of things. I came into Southern Launch thinking it might be a big corporate, suit and tie company and I would be judged for not knowing as much as they thought I would. The people here are extremely nice and generous, none of them seemed at all mad that I interrupted their work or acted as if I was a burden. This place was perfect to do work experience.
If you are interested in completing student work experience at Southern Launch, please reach out to careers@southernlaunch.space for more information.
