The Overview — Landing
The Overview — Landing
Fueling the next generation of aerospace engineers
Landing
The act of concluding a journey with precision and control, marking a successful completion and setting the stage for future endeavours.
Welcome back to The Overview! This week, we’re focusing on the theme of landing: the crucial moment when all the preparation and hard work come together. Just as in aerospace, where a well-executed landing is critical, life’s milestones often require that same level of precision and care. In this edition, we’ll explore several stories that highlight the importance of a strong finish:
🚀 Join Emily as she shares her experience landing a job in the aerospace industry with a PhD and offers practical advice for those on the same path!
📰 Get up to date on the Polaris Dawn mission, the first of three private human spaceflight missions operated by SpaceX under the Polaris program.
👥 Personal Experiences
Landing an Aerospace Industry Job After Your PhD
During life’s transitions, every accomplishment seems to be swiftly met with a new set of challenges. For Emily, this was earning her PhD in Aeronautics & Astronautics at Stanford while simultaneously navigating the aerospace industry job market 🌌.
What company is the right fit for you? 🤔
How do you get your foot in the door? 🚪
Will industry jobs value your PhD experience? 🧠
How do you negotiate salary? 💼
If these questions resonate with you, you’re not alone. Following her PhD at Stanford, Emily successfully landed her dream job at Blue Origin 🚀. In this edition, she shares her journey and offers valuable tips for doctorate students seeking a job in the aerospace industry.
Whether just starting your PhD journey or actively searching for a job, Emily’s advice will guide you toward a successful career. Check out the full article for a step-by-step guide specifically for PhD students.
🗞️ Aerospace News
Excitement is building as SpaceX prepares to launch its highly anticipated Polaris Dawn mission, set to be the most ambitious private spaceflight to date. The mission aims to push the boundaries of commercial space exploration by pursuing the following objectives:
Fly higher than any Dragon mission to date, orbiting through portions of the Van Allen radiation belt, thus better understanding the effects of space radiation on human health.
Perform the first commercial spacewalk at approximately 700km above Earth, using a SpaceX-designed extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuit.
Test Starlink laser-based communications in space.
Use ultrasound to contribute to studies on human decompression sickness, as well as a variety of other health impact research. This research is being conducted in collaboration with the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH), BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado Boulder, Space Technologies Lab at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Weill Cornell Medicine, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the U.S. Air Force Academy.
Polaris Dawn is slated to lift off no earlier than August 26, 2024, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The mission will be the first of three planned flights under the Polaris program, all privately funded by Jared Isaacman, who made headlines with his Inspiration4 mission in 2021. This time, Isaacman will be joined by retired Air Force pilot Scott ‘Kidd’ Poteet (Mission Pilot), and SpaceX’s Sarah Gillis (Mission Specialist) and Anna Menon (Mission Specialist & Medical Officer). The crew is set to embark on a five-day journey that will take them farther from Earth than any human has traveled since the Apollo era.
One of the mission's most significant milestones will be the first-ever commercial spacewalk. With no airlock on the Crew Dragon capsule, the crew will depressurize the entire cabin to the vacuum of space. Polaris Dawn’s Sarah Gillis described this approach further: “We don’t have an airlock on this mission”, so Polaris Dawn will instead take “a really novel and different approach” to the pre-breathing process that involves “slowly decreasing cabin pressure and raising oxygen concentration” over the course of 45 hours. Two astronauts will don specially designed SpaceX EVA suits and step outside the spacecraft for approximately 2 hours, testing the EVA suits’ thermal management, mobility, heads-up display and camera, although the entire crew (and the spacecraft’s interior) will be exposed to the void of space.
💬 Quote of the Week
“If you can walk away from a landing, it’s a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it’s an outstanding landing.” — Chuck Yeager
Thanks for touching down with us for The Overview—The Landing edition. Keep your seatbelt fastened for more aerospace news, insights, and cutting-edge technology in our upcoming issues. If you have any feedback or topics you'd like to see, feel free to reach out at admin@theoverview.org.
Stellar vibes,
Emily, Tagg, Anshuk, Maggie, Isaac ✨