2024 Ames and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Interns

[Audio: background music]

[Visual: Stars in night sky with NZ Space Scholarship patch and the text NZ Space Scholarship reflections]

Narrator: So the internship has reinforced my my passion and desire to pursue a career in space exploration and technology. It's reminded me that there's a profound impact that this type of work can have on both science and society.

[Visual: Axl Rogers speaking to camera]

[Visual: still image of Axl Rogers standing in front of a large antenna, cuts to image of a rotating replica antenna]

[Visual: still image of four people standing in front of a sign which reads ‘WE GO TO SPACE TO IMPROVE LIFE ON EARTH’]

Narrator: One of the biggest surprises from my time here at JPL is just the sheer variety of projects happening here, so much going on and so many interesting people to meet, it's been been a fantastic experience.

[Visual: Narottam Royal speaking to camera]

[Visual: footage of robot in operation outside, cuts to a still image of Axl Rogers and Narottam Royal crouched in front of a Mars rover]

[Visual: footage of a mission control operation centre, cuts to Narottam Royal speaking to camera]

Narrator: One of my highlights has been attending Comic Con down in San Diego. I got to go along with other members of the exoplanet exploration team. We were working NASA's booth, so it was great to do outreach to the public and help them see a bit of the science behind the science fiction.

[Visual: Still image of five people, cuts to Grace Jacobs Corban speaking direct to camera]

[Visual: Still image of a crowd at ComicCon, cuts to sill image of NASA public outreach materials including colouring in pages]

[Visual: Grace speaking direct to camera]

Narrator: I'm excited to take the skills and techniques I've learned here and apply them to work that I have been doing back home.

[Visual: Faun Watson speaking direct to camera, cuts to still image of Faun in front of NASA Ames Research Center sign with replica spacecraft]

Narrator: A major highlight of my time at NASA has been meeting just a really wide variety of cool researchers and learning about a whole bunch of new technologies and ideas which I haven't come across before.

[Visual: Alex McKendry speaking directly to camera, cuts to still image of three people looking at robotic equipment outside with NASA building in the background.]

[Visual: External shot of Ames Research Center building]

Narrator: The thing that I'll miss most is the collaborative atmosphere here and being able to talk with and learn from all these fantastic researchers on a daily basis. My time here has given me a massive confidence boost in my skills as a researcher.

[Visual: Tait Francis speaking direct to camera, cuts to footage of people sitting outside at café tables at JPL campus, before returning to Tait speaking direct to camera]

Narrator: I'm definitely going to just miss being able to talk about and think about space every day.

[Visual: Grace Jacobs Corban speaking direct to camera, cuts to image of Grace and a NASA staff member in front of a brightly coloured artwork depicting asteroids]

[Visual: group photo of six NZ Space Scholarship recipients with the text ‘Ka rawe! Alex, Grace, Narottam, Axl, Tait & Faun’]

[Visual: NZ Space Agency logo]

[Visual: MBIE and New Zealand Government logos]

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Narrator: My first impressions of Ames is that it's extraordinarily large. Even just one research center, there's around 4000 employees working across a huge variety of disciplines.

[Visual: Narrator with NZ Space Scholarship patch and caption reading: Alexandra McKendry NZ Space Scholarship recipient]

[Visual: Large groups of people outside around long tables and under sun umbrellas at Ames then indoor shots of office corridors]

Narrator: The new opportunities, the new friends, the new colleagues and the new knowledge is just invaluable.

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Narrator: My summer here at Ames will be a really useful counterpart to my PhD research.

[Visual: External shot of Ames Research Center building]

What it's doing is providing a really solid grounding and exposure to what neuromorphic computing looks like in industry, and being able to see how these technologies are commercialized and implemented in real world applications.

[Visual: Shots of computer labs, computer equipment and screens]

Narrator: So having that understanding will really enrich my studies in the future.

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Narrator: There's a huge amount of interesting stuff going on here. The place is buzzing and yeah, can't wait to get going.

[Visual: NASA entrance sign with replica spacecraft, then narrator speaking to camera]

[Visual: NZ Space Agency logo]

[Visual: MBIE and New Zealand Government logos]

[Audio: Background music]

[Visual: Narrator inside a room with Mars rover robot]

My first impressions when arriving at JPL were, just kind of awe and wonder.

[Visual: Narrator with NZ Space Scholarship patch and caption reading: Narottam Royal NZ Space Scholarship recipient]

[Visual: Narrator speaking to camera]

We went to the von Karman Auditorium. I got to see these massive models of all these spacecraft I've been hearing about for most of my life.

[Visual: Footage of displays of Voyager and Cassini spacecraft then narrator speaking to camera]

Something I'm really looking forward to during my time here is visiting Goldstone, which is one of the locations of Deep Space Network.

[Visual: Photo of narrator sitting on large concrete JPL entrance sign the narrator speaking to camera]

Deep Space Network consists of huge satellite dishes, so some of them are 70 metres, and lots of 34 metre dishes in diameter.

[Visual: Three images of large satellite dishes at Goldstone]

It'll be amazing to go and see those in person.

[Visual: Narrator speaking to camera]

So something that surprised me is the sheer scale of JPL.

[Visual: Narrator inside a room with mars rover robot]

There are so many projects and different teams all working on such a large range of missions.

[Visual: Footage of people working at computer screens in a mission control environment]

And it's amazing meeting people working on all these different projects.

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[Visual: NZ Space Agency logo]

[Visual: MBIE and New Zealand Government logos]

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My first thought when I arrived, I think, was wow.

[Visual: Narrator with NZ Space Scholarship patch and caption reading: Tait Francis NZ Space Scholarship recipient]

[Visual: People cheering in a mission control room]

Looking across the campus, there's just an exciting thing in every direction.

[Visual: Photo of narrator with Mars rover robot then footage of robot in operation outside]

Everyone here is super excited about space.

[Visual: Narrator speaking to camera]

Everyone here is super knowledgeable. There's resources around every corner.

[Visual: Group of people in lab coats positioning equipment into place, then footage of a man in front of screen displaying space equipment]

The vibe on campus is great because being able to interact with all the academics and engineers and scientists that are working here, as well as the other interns, really fosters a collaborative academic environment.

[Visual: Narrator speaking to camera]

[Visual: Image of NASA JPL entrance sign with NASA logo and the words ‘welcome to our universe’]

[Visual: Image of people sitting outside at café tables at JPL campus, then footage of people working at computer screens in a mission control environment]

Everyone here is phenomenal at what they do, and it's a wealth of experience that I'm so glad I can tap into.

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[Visual: Footage of people in front of computer screens]

It's really a great JPL experience.

[Visual: Narrator speaking to camera, then photo of narrator in mission control]

[Visual: NZ Space Agency logo]

[Visual: MBIE and New Zealand Government logos]

[Background music. Image of NZ Space Agency logo. Video of narrator facing the camera with caption including image of NZ Space Scholarship patch and text reading: 'Narottam Royal NZ Space Scholarship recipient'.]

My name is Narottam, I study at the University of Canterbury. I'm in the electrical and computer engineering department. And my area of research is determining the orientation of a rocket using antennas.

[Video of hills and JPL sign; high speed video of people walking in front of building.]

At JPL I'll be looking at Deep Space Network data and trying to figure out anomalies in the data.

[Video of narrator facing the camera.]

The deep space network consists of several satellite dishes all around the globe.

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While I'm over there, I'll be looking through all the data from these systems and trying to figure out when things go wrong, where they're going wrong so that they can be maintained.

[Video of people seated around an office table.]

And JPL works on so many amazing missions that I've been following and interested in over the years.

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So looking forward to the whole thing really.

[Image of NZ Space Agency logo; Cuts to image of MBIE and New Zealand Government logos. Music ends.]

[Audio/visual: Background music plays. Image of NZ Space Agency logo. Video of narrator facing the camera with caption including image of NZ Space Scholarship patch and text reading: 'Tait Francis NZ Space Scholarship recipient'.]

My name is Tait and I'm studying a PhD in chemistry at the University of Otago. I'm in my third and hopefully final year.

[Visual: Video of entrance to NASA JPL facility; narrator facing the camera; people walking in front of building.]

My project at NASA is just going to be an extension of the PhD work that I'm already doing here in Dunedin, where I'm looking at the composition of ice particles in the atmosphere of Titan, which is Saturn's largest moon.

[Visual: Video of narrator facing the camera.]

I'm looking to investigate how biological molecules might have formed on the prehistoric Earth.

[Visual: Video of people seated around an office table; people working in a lab environment; narrator facing the camera.]

At NASA, I'm really looking forward to being able to use the cutting edge equipment that they have there to really cut to the heart of the research questions I'm looking at.

[Audio/visual: Image of NZ Space Agency logo; Cuts to image of MBIE and New Zealand Government logos. Background music ends.]

[Audio/visual: Background music plays. Video of narrator facing the camera with caption including image of NZ Space Scholarship patch and caption reading: 'Axl Rogers, NZ Space Scholarship recipient'. The narrator is facing the camera.]

My name is Axl Rogers. I'm a PhD candidate in radio astronomy and astrophysics at the Auckland University of Technology.

[Visual: Video of entrance to NASA JPL facility; cars entering facility; video of interior of JPL control room with computer screens.]

My NASA project is called 'delta differential one way ranging'.

[Visual: Video of narrator facing the camera.]

It's basically a fancy word for a big space phone, a way for us to communicate to spacecraft in deep space and making sure that they're healthy and safe.

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I'm looking forward to meeting and working with some of the greatest minds in the field and areas of expertise, working with state of the art technology and instrumentation and learning more about deep space and hopefully, helping New Zealand join the Deep Space Network in the future.

[Audio/visual: Image of NZ Space Agency logo; Cuts to image of MBIE and New Zealand Government logos. Background music ends.]

[Audio/visual: Background music plays. Image of NZ Space Agency logo. Video of narrator facing the camera with caption including image of NZ Space Scholarship patch and text reading: 'Grace Jacobs Corban NZ Space Scholarship recipient'.]

I'm Grace. I'm a student at Victoria University of Wellington. I've just finished studying a Masters of Science in society. And I'm going to be starting a PhD in maths education. And I'm really interested in science communication and making science accessible and fun for everybody.

[Visual: Video of people seated around an office table; narrator facing the camera; children looking at model antenna; person in front of video of a rocket separation; children and adults watching robot.]

So at NASA I'm going to be part of JPL's exoplanet exploration team. I'm going to be working on doing some science communication with them and making some of their science resources accessible and usable for school students.

[Visual: Video of people seated around an office table; narrator facing the camera.]

I'm really looking forward to meeting lots of cool new people, seeing how they do work there and how they approach science communication at NASA, because they do a lot of amazing outreach so I'm looking forward to getting a bit more insight into that.

[Audio/visual: Image of NZ Space Agency logo; Cuts to image of MBIE and New Zealand Government logos. Background music ends.]

[Audio/visual: Background music plays. Image of NZ Space Agency logo. Video of narrator facing the camera with caption including image of NZ Space Scholarship patch and text reading: 'Faun Watson NZ Space Scholarship recipient'.]

My name is Faun Watson. I'm studying for a PhD at Victoria University in physics focusing on building deployables for satellites to take down dead or old satellites in a sustainable and affordable way.

[Visual: Video of people seated around an office table; narrator facing the camera.]

In my time at Ames, I will be working with the aerothermodynamics division, which looks at the interaction between spacecraft and the atmosphere upon reentry. Specifically, I'm going to be using some software NASA has developed and integrating it with the results from their shock tube which is a sort of like a wind tunnel for these re-entry conditions.

[Visual: Video of people seated around an office table; narrator facing the camera.]

I think I'm really looking forward to the connections I'm going to make overseas and hoping to maintain some of these for when we return and hopefully spread these to the greater New Zealand space community for future collaborations.

[Audio/visual: Image of NZ Space Agency logo; Cuts to image of MBIE and New Zealand Government logos. Background music ends.]

[Audio/visual: Background music plays. Image of NZ Space Agency logo. Video of narrator facing the camera with caption including image of NZ Space Scholarship patch and text reading: 'Alexandra McKendry NZ Space Scholarship recipient'.]

I'm Alex and I'm a mechanical engineering PhD student at the University of Canterbury. And I'm studying neuromorphic computation.

[Visual: Video of people seated around an office table; narrator facing the camera.]

Neuromorphic computing is a alternative computing paradigm which is inspired by how computation works in the brain.

I'm going to be working at NASA Ames Research Center in the autonomy and robotics division on a neuromorphic co-processor for autonomous flight capabilities. I'm looking forward to being exposed to cutting edge technology and research. Coming from New Zealand it's going be

[Visual: Video of people seated around an office table; narrator facing the camera.]

really exciting to see what's possible, and hopefully bring some of that knowledge back to New Zealand.

[Audio/visual: Image of NZ Space Agency logo; Cuts to image of MBIE and New Zealand Government logos. Background music ends.]