The Overview — Intentional
Fueling the next generation of aerospace engineers
Intentional
Purposeful and deliberate; done with clear intention
Welcome back to The Overview! We hope you had an amazing holiday season, and are ready to kick off the new year with purpose and intention. This week, we’ve got an exciting article for you on engineering excellence and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.
🤔 What does it take to land rockets and catch boosters with pinpoint precision? As a GNC engineer, The Overview’s own Anshuk Chigullapalli has firsthand experience from his time at SpaceX. Now, he’s back to share the lessons he learned from working with some of the brightest minds in aerospace, with insights that apply broadly to engineering.
🌞 Just before Christmas, the Parker Solar Probe successfully performed and survived its closest flyby of the sun, reaching about 3.8 million miles from the sun's surface! It reached speeds of 430,000 mph at its approach, a new speed record for any human-made object. Talk about blazing a trail!
👥 Personal Experiences
Engineering amazing machines takes more than skill; it takes a lot of hard work, thought, and determination. As a GNC engineer, The Overview’s own Anshuk Chigullapalli has tackled a variety of projects, experiencing both challenges and successes—and gaining valuable lessons along the way. In his article, he highlights his time as a GNC intern working on Starship, revealing key lessons to becoming a better GNC designer and a better engineer:
Always get to the root of the problem
Conduct deep, methodical investigations of problems and design flaws
Make sure your results are airtight
Communicate your findings simply and clearly.
Want to learn how these lessons came to life in the fast-paced world of SpaceX? Check out the full article for actionable insights and stories from his journey!
🚀 Aerospace News
January will be an incredibly exciting month for the space industry, with many of the stories we previously talked about (such as the New Glenn inaugural launch, and a ton of lunar lander missions) reaching their finish lines in the next 10 days. So, we will keep this one relatively short, because the next Overview news section will be absolutely jam-packed.
Eric Berger of Ars Technica did his annual ranking of the best launch companies in the US. Apart from recommending the great read highlighting the current state of various companies in the launch industry, we have to call out one of the list’s entries. University of Southern California’s Rocket Propulsion Lab, one of the country's most successful student rocket teams, was listed as the 10th best rocket company, despite not even being a commercial company. The team continues to showcase the amazing feats that students can achieve, so this is well-deserved recognition!
Parker Solar Probe Performs its Closest Flyby
The Parker Solar Probe is an incredibly cool mission launched in February 2018. The goal of the mission is to gather information about the sun’s outer corona (i.e. the sun’s upper atmosphere) so that we can characterize space weather and learn more about the origins of solar wind. With new data from the probe, scientists are better understanding the behaviors of the sun and the high-energy particles in its atmosphere.
To gather these measurements, the probe must repeatedly perform close flybys of the sun. It achieved this by slingshotting itself around Venus using gravity assists. With each slingshot, it dived further through the corona, and closer to the sun. Just before the new year on December 24th, the probe successfully performed and survived its closest flyby of the sun, reaching about 3.8 million miles from the sun's surface. Faced with temperatures around 1800 degrees Fahrenheit, the probe protects its instruments using a 4.5-inch thick heat shield. Last but certainly not least, with the probe reaching speeds of 430,000 mph at its approach, it is the fastest man-made object ever! ☄️
💬 Quote of the Week
“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives — choice, not chance, determines your destiny.”
— Aristotle
Thanks for reading The Overview—The Intentional edition. As we step into the new year, we’d love to hear: What are some intentions you have for 2025, whether in engineering, personal growth, or beyond?
Enjoyed this edition? Share The Overview with a friend or colleague who’s passionate about aerospace! We’d love to hear from you—feel free to reach out at admin@theoverview.org with any feedback or requests for future topics!
Stellar vibes,
Tagg, Anshuk, Maggie, Isaac