Intern at Motiv Space Systems
Summer 2017 and 2018
Testing harmonic drive under simulated Martian conditions
Mars 2020 Robotic Arm Intern
Mars 2020 is a NASA JPL mars rover that is part of the search for extraterrestrial life. As an intern I joined the Mars 2020 Robotic Arm engineering team, and participated in various aspects of design, integration, and test.
space exploration and me
I have always been deeply captivated by space exploration. When I was 5 years old I wrote a letter to NASA explaining that I wanted to work for them. I am so grateful I had the opportunity to fulfill my childhood dreams and work on Mars 2020. The universe is big and awesome— pretty cool we get to explore it.
stow/unstow life test
I was given full responsibility for the test design, SolidWorks CAD, EGSE design, test execution, data analysis, reporting, and presentation for the stow/unstow launch lock components on the JPL Mars 2020 robotic arm. The results of my effort are shown above. The test was successful, and the RA meets JPL requirements. Much of my work at Motiv is proprietary and cannot be displayed on this website, but I would be happy to answer questions about my technical work.
Additional projects
I assisted in integration and cleanroom safe-to-mate checkout for the robotic arm (RA) EM and conducted thermal testing of flight hardware. I tested and analyzed the azimuth/elevation harmonic drive for RA under a wide range of thermal and torsional loads. I also programmed and set up an LN2 thermal chamber.
My parallel beam flexure simulates stiffness of the robotic arm in two directions. All flexures came in within +/- 5% of design stiffness.