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Quite a lot has changed at Benchmark Space Systems since I started my internship in the fall of 2018. New lab equipment, projects, and employees have brought excitement and vitality to the company.
One of my favorite moments at Benchmark happened last year early in the summer. I was working full time and the office was full of energy, new employees, and a few interns. Earlier in my internship that year I had the opportunity to learn a new computational fluid dynamics tool, Solidworks Flow, and had used it to simulate the effects of applying heat externally around a pipe. Some of these results were included in the NASA SBIR Phase I proposal for a warm gas generator resistojet micropropulsion system. The proposal was organized and written by my mentor Matt Walton, and I was grateful to have contributed meaningfully to this application process. Months passed and finally in mid-June, NASA announced that our proposal had earned an award. I felt an incredible sense of pride knowing my work influenced the success of this project. The increase in my responsibilities paired with the collaborative work environment of Benchmark gave me the chance to help impact in the company’s trajectory.
Early this May, Benchmark earned a NASA Phase II grant for this project. I am proud to have contributed for the past year to the success of this proposal through testing and analysis during the Phase I. From learning new technical skills to working with interdisciplinary teams to running my own sub-projects, my internship experience at Benchmark has provided me with knowledge that wasn’t possible to obtain from my undergraduate degree alone. This summer I am excited to start a full-time position as a junior mechanical engineer at Metis Design Corporation in Boston,Massachusetts.