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Want to work in space?

Concordia grads talk about how they got to NASA
November 9, 2016
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By Sue Montgomery


As the crow flies, Greenbelt, Md., near Washington, D.C., is about 900 km from Montreal. But as rocket ships fly — it’s a bit farther.

Concordia grads at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. Md Concordia grads Clara Hollenhorst, Zoran Kahric and Andrew Lea at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. Md

So one wouldn’t necessarily expect to find three Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science grads at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. Yet that’s where Concordia caught up with Clara Hollenhorst, BEng (elec.) 80, Zoran Kahric, BEng (elec.) 97, and Andrew Lea, BEng (mech.) 97.

Zoran A. Kahric

Describe what you do at NASA.

Zoran A. Kahric: “I have been working at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center since 2001. My first job here was researching how electronics perform under radiation exposure in space. It’s a hard life for all those satellites flying high above us.

Recently, I’m working on developing and testing laser detectors. NASA is getting ready to launch the ICESat-2 satellite next year that will measure the thickness of ice on the poles and height of trees in the rainforest. Very short laser pulses will be sent at a rate of 10,000 per second from the satellite flying at 10 km per second and 500 km high, and captured 0.003 seconds later.

A very accurate ‘stop watch’ will measure the time it takes for photons to bounce back in order to calculate the thickness of the ice at the North Pole or the height of Brazilian cherry trees in the Amazon rainforest.

Currently I am working on a project to communicate with the ICESat-2 spacecraft, download data from orbit and get scientific data from it. Later next year we will start collecting real data from the spacecraft and we will get much better information about melting ice and trends in vegetation growth.”

How did Concordia help you reach your goal of working for NASA?

ZAK: “I came to Montreal as a college student from Croatia barely speaking English, with no French, and no idea how the Canadian education system worked. My two aunts lived in the area and they helped me to settle, figure out how schools work, got me into English classes and explained to me how I had to pay taxes on every dollar I made. That last lesson was a very unusual concept for an Eastern European student.

When I applied to Concordia my English wasn’t very good and I still remember talking to the student affairs coordinator, Linda MacDonald, trying to explain how I could handle math and physics classes. Without her help I would never be where I am now.

Once the classes started I had fun, but also some new worries. I discovered that a few classes were much harder than I expected, but most of my professors were willing to spend time and effort explaining, for example, why electrical current flows a certain way and not the way I was sure it should.

After the first year, things got more interesting, classes were smaller and I was able to pick courses I enjoyed.

After graduating from Concordia I moved to the United States and decided to enrol in graduate school. I was a bit skeptical whether my Concordia degree would be accepted in the U.S. but I was accepted in all 10 schools I applied to, including one Ivy League school.

In the end, I chose Boston University and my Concordia undergraduate skills were just as good as other students who came from much more prestigious schools.”

How did you get to NASA?

ZAK: “We lived in Boston in 2001 when my wife got an offer to do a fellowship in endocrinology at Georgetown University Hospital. After going over ads in the career section of the Washington Post, and sending resumes to a few companies, one of them that had a contract with NASA Goddard, called me for an interview.

One morning I flew in for an interview, spoke with my future supervisor, went for lunch together, and signed a contract on the hood of his car. It was one of those moments that changes your life but you are not aware of it at that moment.”

What advice would you give to younger students who might want to follow in your footsteps?

ZAK: “My advice for current students would be to not worry about your grades, but rather learn why and how things work. Take classes you like, not ones that are easy. Take classes that will make you smarter in the end, and not just boost your GPA.

Pick a project were you will learn unexpected things and supervisors who will spend time with you. When you graduate, your future employer will ask you what you know and they won’t care where you learned it.

University is a place where you learn not just math and physics, or English and French. It is a place where you learn to deal with all kinds of problems, people and cultures. Those are skills you will need later in life.”

Clara Hollenhorst

Describe what you do at NASA.

Clara Hollenhorst: “I’m an instrument systems engineer, meaning I work with scientists and engineers to make sure the instruments we build can last long enough in the harsh environment in space and are practical to build, launch and operate. We work with the operations and instrument electronics engineers to make sure the instrument can be operated in orbit from the ground, even though we may only have contact with it a few minutes a day.

We help the mission engineers ensure the instrument will fit on the spacecraft and that the spacecraft provides enough electricity to run the instrument once we are in orbit. The rocket engineers use our predictions of the instrument weight and size to provide enough fuel to reach orbit.

We also work with parts engineers to make sure that every component can withstand the rigors of operating in a vacuum, can continue working in temperatures between -40°C and +70°C, can take radiation that would destroy most consumer electronics, and meet mission lifetime goals often exceeding five years or more.

Once we have settled on an instrument design, throughout the development and test, we monitor the progress of the buildup of the instrument and look for potential problems. We regularly evaluate these potential problems, known as risks, for their likelihood, their potential costs, whether we need to look for other solutions, and especially when we can stop worrying about one of them.

We evaluate the testing of each component before it goes into the instrument then we assemble and test the instrument as a whole. It’s subjected to many cycles between hot and cold, in air and again in a vacuum. It is shaken, not stirred, as if it was in a very rough rocket ride.

Then we attach the instrument to the spacecraft, creating an ‘observatory.’ More tests are done until we’re ready to launch.”

How did Concordia help you reach your goal of working for NASA?

CH: “My electrical engineering degree at Concordia helped me to achieve my career goals by being in one of the best Engineering programs in the world. The professors I had were extremely competent in their fields, which was displayed in their teaching. One of the life lessons I learned from the curriculum is to work hard with tenacity in order to understand and successfully complete the given assignment. This lesson has helped me to overcome many of the challenges I have encountered.”

How did you end up at NASA?

“I started out at a space contracting company where my specialty was the Hubble Space Telescope Servicing mission. Many of my colleagues at NASA as well as the space contracting Company knew my work and liked it. I saw a job advertisement to join NASA civil service, and my job experience and education met the job requirement, so I applied. I had an interview and got the job.”

What advice would you give younger students who might want to follow in your footsteps?

CH: “Major in a hard science or engineering field. Seek advice from your faculty to choose the best fit to your interests and career goals. Apply to space contracting companies and space agencies for work in the area of your interest and education.

Be flexible, especially early in your career, when considering factors such as relocation and work assignments. Work hard in spite of the challenges and never give up. Keep your eye on the goal and you’ll get there eventually.”

Andrew Lea

Please describe your job at NASA.

Andrew Lea: “My official job title is senior test systems engineer. It’s a bit of a vague description, really. A more honest title would really be, ‘guy who knows how to make machinery work.’

I’ve got a bit of a knack for seeing an obscure system that needs to be automated, and figuring out how to do so. Most of my work these days has me automating test benches and systems for orbiting telescopes, most recently the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope and the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System. My specific tasks really change from project to project, though.”

How did Concordia help you reach your goal of working for NASA?

AL: “In all honesty, when I was at Concordia I never had the slightest idea that I would eventually end up here. At the time, it never occurred to me as a career goal. Between graduation and starting work here, I worked at a number of jobs across three industries, aviation, auto and eventually spacecraft.

Looking back, I think the aspects of my education that serve me best here at NASA include a strong emphasis on systems engineering. Even though I was in mechanical engineering, Concordia’s curriculum strongly emphasized a multidisciplinary approach in its topics, particularly in the areas of control systems and automation.

In my experience, there was a very strong implication that the lines between a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer and a structural engineer are necessarily blurred. Given that I now work on systems that routinely incorporate lots of input in all these areas, this very strongly correlates with my work experience.”

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