• Question: What project are you working on right now? And why is your research important?

    Asked by Anna to Xu, Leah-Nani, Kathryn, Ian, Andrew on 12 Jun 2018.
    • Photo: Kathryn Burrows

      Kathryn Burrows answered on 12 Jun 2018:

      I am looking at modeling the Cs fountain clock. It is the most accurate clock in the country and helps set the nations timescale so it is important it is ticking correctly!

    • Photo: Ian Jones

      Ian Jones answered on 12 Jun 2018:

      I’m working on lots of projects – but each one as part of a team. We are upgrading our largest antenna to become part of the Deep Space Network, we are designing a mission to go to the Moon – called Lunar Pathfinder, we’re designing a data centre which will be able to store earth observation data and we’re starting to build a “software defined radio” lab.

      The work we’re doing is helping to change the way that the Space industry works: Until now, only the very largest companies and governments have been able to engage in Space activities, but more recently smaller companies, universities and even schools can build and launch satellites.

      This means that there are many more opportunities for people to get involved in Space projects.

    • Photo: Leah-Nani Alconcel

      Leah-Nani Alconcel answered on 12 Jun 2018:

      I’m working on building a new magnetometer for the JUICE mission. The spacecraft is due to launch in 2022 and travel to Jupiter. It will study the Galilean moon Ganymede, and try to characterise the liquid (subsurface) ocean.

      This is typically called “blue skies” research because the immediate practical benefits aren’t always obvious. But it’s important in the sense that it gives us goals as a species – space exploration, colonisation and terraforming, for instance. And liquid oceans elsewhere in our solar system are places where potentially life could have developed, so knowing more about them helps us understand more about how life on Earth developed.

    • Photo: Andrew Margetts-Kelly

      Andrew Margetts-Kelly answered on 13 Jun 2018:

      I’m working on gyroscopes and radiation monitors that can be used in geostationary orbit.
      The gyros are a bit like your inner ear in the way they tell us how fast we are spinning. They are important for the spacecraft so that it can move around without getting dizzy.
      The radiation monitors are important because we need to know how much dose the spacecraft has accumulated; from that we can figure out how long it has left to live.

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