MichSpace

SEDS@UM will be hosting Yuri's Night for another year at Necto! Every year we've done this it has been awesome! To continue tradition music will be provided by MEDMA. If you'd like to go, you'll either need to purchase a ticket from us for $5 or buy one at the door. You can find the facebook event page here. There you will be able to get more info on the event as well locations to buy tickets. Email yurisnight(at)umich.edu if you have any questions. Be sure to like our Facebook page while you're there as well!

--Patrick

SEDS Heads,
 
Where would you like to go after graduation?  I'm conducting an informal poll of job trends in the industry (for a pro-space lobbyist in Washington, D.C.) and want to know your top two choices for employment. What company/organization do you want to work for and what is it about these places that makes you want to work there?  Simply fill out this form and let your voice be heard!
 
I encourage you to include with your response an up to date resume for inclusion in the SEDS Resume Book!  You can email resumes to me at harvey.elliott@gmail.com. Once collected, I'll be distributing it to my contacts in the space industry and hopefully help you get YOUR DREAM JOB! The deadline for inclusion is 10pm, Friday, October 21st.
 
Example from Harvey Elliott:
1) JPL - They're the preeminent leaders in planetary science and deep space exploration - ROBOTS WITH LASERS ON MARS!!!
2) SpaceX - Obviously, they're what NASA SHOULD BE.  They have the entrepreneurial spirit and can do attitude that we all aspire to. SpaceX is without doubt one of the most driven companies in the industry… 
 
Please excuse my overeager use of ALL CAPS!

1. Installation of a mock (3/4 scale) Sputnik on the Diag and posting of fliers campus wide. For better or worse, that little glass ball forever changed the world and ushered in a new age of scientific and technological advancement. We celebrate this day in history. Read more about Sputnik-1 here.

2. Playing of the feature film Moon a 2009 British sci-fi/drama about a man who experiences a personal crisis as he nears the end of a three-year solitary stint mining helium-3 far side of the Moon. The film received wide acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival and received the 2009 award for Best Independent Film at the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA). The showing is planned for 7pm on Thursday, 6 October in G906 Cooley.

3. Co-hosting a space-out-party with Sigma Gamma Tau (SGT) at 335 Packard, Ann Arbor. Show up in your space suits anytime after 10pm on Friday, 7 October and be careful handling the rocket fuel!

by: Scott Granger - Mission Architectures Intern at Aerojet and MEng Student

This summer I had the opportunity to work at Aerojet in Sacramento, CA. Aerojet is a defense contractor mainly for spacecraft, launch vehicle, and missile propulsion systems. Aerojet has two main competitors – Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and ATK. What makes Aerojet so unique is they are the only company that have experience in liquid, solid, and electric propulsion.

I spent 13 weeks in Sacramento, CA working on two main projects. I sat in the Mission Architectures Group which performed the up-front feasibility studies for propulsion systems. The work that is done in this group eventually is the basis for determining the requirements of the system – should the customer give us their business. On the job, I was first introduced to a trajectory simulation tool called POST. POST is a FORTRAN based code (though compiled through an executable) that determines the best trajectory for a launch vehicle based on different propulsion systems. You can set different constraints on the problem to limit, for example, dynamic pressure during staging. A large part of my summer was spent running POST simulations for different launch vehicles composed of many different propulsion systems. Second, I was assigned as the head engineer on a small contract with Sierra Nevada that required 2 weeks of engineering design and analysis. Under this contract, I conducted a trade study for a solid rocket grain geometry that incorporated industry tools that I had never used before. I created grain burn backs for complicated grains and the complete ballistics analysis. The design was put into CAD with performance analysis (Isp, Thrust, maximum pressure, etc) and shipped to the customer.

The location of Aerojet – really located in Rancho Cordova, CA – is somewhat less than desirable. The weather approaches 100 degrees F in the summer and located about 3 hours from San Francisco (the water). Aerojet has historically been an “older” person site, however, it has started to hire younger people over the last 5 years. I encourage anybody interested in mechanical or aerospace design, analysis, or modeling to consider Aerojet.