System Engineering for Earth Observation Satellites

[Music plays and an image appears of the Earth against a night sky, and inset hexagonal images appear showing a female working on a computer, a satellite dish, and a female working in a space lab, and text appears: Space Careers Wayfinder]

[Image changes to show a view of the Black Mountain Science and Innovation Park]

[Image changes to show Courtney Bright talking to the camera, and then images move through of Courtney working on a laptop, and text appears: Courtney Bright, Space Systems Engineer, CSIRO]

Courtney Bright: I’m Courtney Bright. I recently started a new role at CSIRO as the Space Systems Engineer, where I’m working on getting CSIRO’s satellites launched and working in space.

[Images move through of an aerial view of Melbourne, and then a view of a busy pedestrian crossing in Melbourne]

I grew up in the very outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne in the, in the sticks as it was called.

[Images move through to show a close and then medium view of Courtney talking to the camera]

My time at school was not fun if I’m honest and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I liked a lot of things. I was good at piano and so I think at the time I would say, if anybody asked me what I wanted to do, I’d say, oh maybe a piano teacher, just because that was the only thing that I knew that I was good at.

[Images move through to show a rocket launching, a satellite moving over the surface of the Moon, Courtney talking to the camera, a close view of Saturn, and a galaxy in a night sky]

I had always liked space and physics from very early on, flicking through encyclopaedias and reading about the stars and the planets and I had my mind kind of blown by that.

[Images move through to show multiple formulas on a dark screen, and then the image changes to show Courtney talking to the camera]

So, I dropped my music electives and went down the science route instead and did physics and maths subjects in VCE.

[Music plays and the image changes to show a galaxy]

[Image changes to show a satellite dish against a sunset, and then the image changes to show Courtney talking to the camera]

Systems engineering is an interesting discipline that I didn’t kind of realise existed until a few years ago.

[Image changes to show a satellite moving over the Earth’s surface, and then the image changes to show a close and then medium view of Courtney talking to the camera]

So often when we’re designing a satellite for example we’ll have different specialists for the different subsystems of the satellite but there needs to be somebody that knows about all of them and how they all interact with each other so that we can make sure that all the different bits and pieces work together to deliver the outcome that we’re designing for.

[Image changes to show a satellite moving towards the camera over the Earth’s surface]

And so that’s currently my role at CSIRO for the satellites that CSIRO is looking at launching.

[Image changes to show an Inovor Technology satellite, and then the image changes to show Dr Matthew Tetlow holding a piece of the satellite, and text appears: Dr Matthew Tetlow]

And the one that I’m spending the most time on at the moment is one of the first satellites that’s been developed by Inovor Technologies.

[Image changes to show the Inovor satellite moving over the Earth’s surface, and then the image changes to show Courtney talking to the camera]

They’re a startup company in Adelaide and they have designed the satellite entirely in-house.

[Image changes to show the Inovor satellite moving over the Earth’s surface, and then the image changes to show a camera view from the satellite, and then the image changes to show a waterfall]

And then CSIRO have designed the payload, the scientific instrument, that goes on board that spacecraft, which is a shortwave infrared sensor, and that we can use to detect things that you can’t see with the human eye. So, you’ll be able to check things like detecting minerals that might be under the surface.

[Image changes to show a view of the satellite moving through the night sky]

I’ve often found it, and still do find it a little bit confusing, to wrap my head around why satellites stay up in space.

[Images move through to show Courtney talking, a rocket launching, a view out the spacecraft window, and then a medium view of Courtney talking]

My understanding is that when we launch them on the rocket we need to get them to a certain velocity where the speed of the spacecraft is essentially cancelling out I guess the pull, the pull of gravity from the Earth.

[Images move through to show the satellite moving over the Earth’s surface]

The higher up your orbit is there’s less gravitational pull from Earth and so you don’t need to go quite as fast. But if you are in a lower orbit the gravity’s stronger and so you need to go faster.

[Image changes to show a close view of Courtney talking to the camera]

At lot of the time in high school I kind of thought, you know, why am I learning this, I’m never going to need to know this.

[Image changes to show a close view of a hand drawing a diagram on graph paper]

And one thing I remember in a Year 11 maths class I actually made a joke to a friend about, I’m never going to need to use this, was trigonometry, and I used that on a daily basis during my PhD.

[Image changes to show a medium and then a close view of Courtney talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show a diagram of satellites surrounding the Earth]

Other ones that I end up using a lot are calculus, algebra all the time, irrational numbers as well – particularly during, when you’re trying to analyse signals from spacecraft – we need to use imaginary numbers.

[Image changes to show a view out of the spacecraft, and then the image changes to show Courtney talking to the camera]

A successful and satisfying day, we have the big ones like making contact with the, with the spacecraft, getting a science experiment done successfully.

[Image changes to show a close view of Courtney talking to the camera]

But also often the little things.

[Image changes to show a close view of a satellite moving over the surface of the Earth]

So, I found that one thing I really loved about designing spacecraft is the way that you need to work in a team.

[Image changes to show a group of people collaborating at a table, and then the image changes to show a medium and then close view of Courtney talking to the camera]

Each of those people has very specialist expertise and we need to, you know, trust those people, let them bring their expertise to the table.

[Image changes to show a view of the satellite moving around the Earth, and then the image changes to show a close view of Courtney talking to the camera]

And often you’ll be solving a problem, none of us individually will be able to solve that problem but we’ll need to come together and have each person bring their own piece of the puzzle.

[Image changes to show a medium view of Courtney talking to the camera]

And then it’s a very satisfying and kind of often quite fast process to work that way. And so that’s a part of my job that I find really satisfying.

[Images move through to show a satellite inside a building, Courtney working on a part of the satellite, Courtney talking to the camera, and Courtney holding a piece of the satellite and talking to a male]

I’ve found that the longer I’ve been in school, which is a long time, the more I kind of learnt what I don’t know. That seems to be quite a common experience. The important thing is to be OK with that.

[Image shows Courtney putting the satellite piece on display on a bench]

Ask questions when you don’t understand something, to not feel like you need to know everything.

[Image changes to show Courtney talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show a view of the side of a university building]

I remember being the only girl in my high school physics class, one of only a handful of girls in my engineering classes at university.

[Images move through of Courtney entering a room and sitting down at a desk, and then the image changes to show Courtney talking to the camera]

At first I found it kind of cool. It was interesting to be kind of the odd one out and then as I progressed through my studies I started to not feel that way so much and started to see the disadvantages of that as well.

[Image changes to show Courtney working on her laptop at the desk, and then the image changes to show Courtney posing with her class in a photo]

Earlier in my career I really felt like I needed to fit in and kind of be one of the guys to fit in and I really learned later that that was quite detrimental.

[Images move through to show Courtney talking to the camera, Courtney working on her laptop at a desk, and a close view of the laptop screen she is working on showing the world globe]

I needed to be myself and diversity is really, really important in engineering because if we have a group of people thinking the same things you’re not going to end up with a very good solution.

[Images move through of a radio telescope dish against a sunset background, a satellite moving over the surface of the Earth, Courtney talking, space books on a desk, and a display of space stickers]

For anyone in high school looking to get into the space sector, there are so many different fields within the space sector. It doesn’t even necessarily need to be in STEM.

[Image changes to show a medium view of Courtney talking to the camera]

Like if you want to be a lawyer there’s a, there’s a place for you in space.

[Image changes to show a view of a radio telescope dish moving with a night sky in the background]

If you want to be a communications expert, there’s a place for you in space.

[Image changes to show a close view of Courtney talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show a view of the outside of the building she works in]

It’s really important to find the thing that you enjoy doing and that you’re good at, and pursue that and most likely there will be an option in the space industry for you with that.

[Images move through of Courtney walking towards the building, Courtney walking through a sliding glass door, and then a side view of Courtney walking along an upstairs corridor in the building]

And I mentioned before about, you know, space often being quite high pressure when you’re working on getting spacecraft built.

[Images move through to show Courtney nodding and enjoying a cup of coffee, and then the image changes to show Courtney talking to the camera]

It’s been really important to look after myself during that time and to not let work become too much of my life and too much of my identity. So, for me it’s really important to spend time with friends and family, have friends that aren’t all space engineers.

[Image changes to show a rear view of a group of people all running along a pavement, and then the image changes to show Courtney talking to the camera]

And for me that meant I needed to go and join clubs. The biggest one for me was my running club that I joined in Canberra, which was the first time I was able to make friends that weren’t engineers.

[Image changes to show a close view of Courtney talking to the camera]

Exercise, absolutely, and meditation, and playing piano are big ones for me.

[Music plays and the image changes to show the CSIRO logo and text: CSIRO, Australia’s National Space Agency, Space Careers Wayfinder 2022 except where otherwise indicated, The Space Careers Wayfinder materials may be used, reproduced, communicated and adapted free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes provided all acknowledgements associated with the material are retained, Space Careers Wayfinder is a collaboration between the CSIRO and ANU]

 

[Image changes to show Australian National University logo]