Code in Outer Space
Imagine this — you’re sitting at a computer in your office. The screen glows brightly in the dimly lit room. A small crowd of engineers and scientists is gathered around your desk as you hit a few keystrokes. And because of those keystrokes, more than 2.5 billion miles away, a spacecraft adjusts its orbit around Pluto — one of the most distant dwarf planets orbiting our Sun.
This could be you — if you were Katie Bechtold. She is one of several real-time flight controllers for the New Horizons spacecraft. New Horizons is a spacecraft launched by NASA to study Pluto and its moons, along with other very distant objects in our solar system.
The spacecraft is made of a number of very sensitive remote controlled cameras powered by solar panels. Everything is connected to rockets that drive it through space, and the whole thing is controlled by computers. It sends data back to Earth for scientists to study so we can learn about this very mysterious and distant part of our solar system.
New Horizons travelled billions of miles through space to reach Pluto. It was launched in 2006 and it reached Pluto in July of 2015. That’s right — it’s travelled so far that it took nine years to get there! And it takes a whole team of people working together every day to drive the spacecraft and study the data that comes back.
We have already received many amazing pictures of Pluto from New Horizons. They have taught us many new things, but New Horizons is still not done. Now that New Horizons has explored Pluto and its moons, it will continue on to study some other distant objects in a region of the solar system called the Kuiper Belt. The Kuiper Belt is a ring of chunks of rocks and ice that includes Pluto. It is all very far from Earth and very mysterious — until now!
Katie is one of the amazing engineers who writes code for New Horizons and actually directs the spacecraft. We have been lucky enough for her to answer some questions about her job! We are getting an inside peek at what it’s like for a woman to work on one of the most famous and exciting space projects of our time.
Katie is a real time flight controller. Her primary job is to drive New Horizons. While here on Earth, she sends commands to New Horizons using NASA’s Deep Space Network, which allows her to communicate with the distant spacecraft using radio waves. The Deep SpaceNetwork is a series of satellite dishes around the world
that can send and receive radio waves deep into space. She also checks the telemetry — information about the health of the spacecraft, such as its temperature, the state of its batteries, and how well its software is running. And she writes code that lets her and her teammates better understand the information that New Horizons sends back to Earth.
Excerpts from interview below conducted on March 16th.
Katie, what is the most exciting part of your job?
“Hands down, it was the spacecraft’s flyby of the Pluto-Charon system last July. This is a (binary dwarf) planet that had never before been explored! It was historic and amazing and I’m really proud to have been part of it.”
How does your job have an impact on society/the world/the solar system?
“I find it gratifying that my job supports our further scientific understanding of the solar system.”
Why did you get involved in computers and technology in the first place?
“I enjoy programming! It’s as simple as that.”
What kind of education did you have to get to get your job?“People with my job have a variety of educational backgrounds, including liberal arts, but my education (B.S. and M.S.) was in computer science, and many of my co-workers have a background in aerospace engineering.”
You’ve told us a lot about the exciting technical tasks you do. But any engineering job involves a lot more than technical skills. What social skills/soft skills do you have to use in your job?
“It’s hard to think of a moment in my job when I’m not using soft skills. […] They come into play when I’m training our interns, communicating with Deep Space Network antenna operators over the voice loop, arranging our shift schedules, and writing documentation. I’m sure there are many [more] examples, but those are the first that come to mind.”
Can you share a story about technology you used when you were 8–14 years old?
“Around that time my family had a Commodore 64 (for games) and a 8086-based IBM PC. Honestly I didn’t really do any programming on them — I just used them to play games, write my reports for school, connect to local BBSs [online chat boards], and sometimes produce a silly family newsletter. Still, interacting with computers in those days was much less mediated by sophisticated interfaces than it is today, and I think that led to my being comfortable around computers and understanding how they worked fairly well. It was in high school that I started programming, around the same time that the World Wide Web was emerging.”
What did you like to do for fun when you were 8–14?
“I liked playing the piano, reading, and using computers[…].”
What do you like to do for fun now?
“I love practicing the Japanese Way of Tea, mucking about in caves, and advocating for social justice.”
What would you like to add or tell me that you think our audience would enjoy?
“Women made up about a quarter of the New Horizons fly-by team. […] Not exactly parity (and unfortunately very, very white) but a step in the right direction!”
Would you be interested in doing something like this someday? It’s really possible — you could do it! In order to get a job like this and work on something like New Horizons, you must be passionate about computers and science. Getting a college degree in a related field, like computer science or aerospace engineering helps. But what is really needed is determination — if you are determined, you could really send your code into outer space!
More about..
NASA: “Solar System Exploration: Solar System 101” https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/kids/
NASA’s official New Horizon’s Page: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main
Katie Bechtold@TedX MidAtlantic, speaking about the Pluto Mission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWXQIOUaqnk
“The Women who Power NASA’s New Horizons Mission to Pluto” http://www.nasa.gov/feature/the-women-who-power-nasa-s-new-horizons-mission-to-pluto
“Women Have Always Been NASA Pioneers” http://blogs.nasa.gov/leadership/2016/03/17/women-have-always-been-nasa-pioneers/
NASA: “Media Usage Guidelines” http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines/index.html
Chris Stepnitz is a Software Architect at Next Century Corporation. She loves computers, outer space, writing, plants, and animals.
Many thanks to Katie Bechtold who kindly gave her time and knowledge for this interview.
The opinions expressed in the article are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect those of Next Century Corporation. Content is attributed to owners. Please contact WIC@NextCentury.com if you have any questions.
If you are interested in learning more about Next Century, please check our website below:
