Below we present interviews with specialists from the space industry who explain the possible paths of development in space sector. We also encourage you to read the career paths catalogue, where we have collected information about studies and courses in this area.
Dr Anna Łosiak is planetary geologist working at the Polish Academy of Sciences. She focuses on studying impact craters and surficial processes on Mars. She is also involved in various outreach activities and Mars analog missions. She started her education and research in the field of planetary geology during Master studies with M.A. Velbel at Michigan State University (funded by the Fulbright Graduate Student Award). Her main focus there was on the development of evaporite minerals during weathering of Antarctic meteorites. During this time she also obtained an internship at the Lunar Planetary Institute in Houston where under the supervision of D. Kring she worked on impact cratering on Moon. During her PhD at the University of Vienna (under the supervision of C. Koeberl) she extended her understanding of impact processes by studying the 10 km diameter Bosumtwi crater in Ghana. After obtaining PhD she won a 3-year Post-Doctoral grant from the National Science Centre (Poland), for research on weathering of rocks on icy deserts: Antarctica and Martian Polar Residual Cap. Since 2012 she is also involved in preparing and running Mars Analog Missions: since 2013 she has lead the science team at the Austrian Space Forum. During the last couple of years, in parallel to projects related to Mars she has been working on small impact craters. She has led (and co-led) two research expeditions to Kaali craters which resulted in finding charcoal pieces buried in proximal ejecta. Finding those charcoals not only allowed us to finally determine the age of this structure, but also opened new questions that lead to this proposal.
Gordon Wasilewski, PhD student at the Space Research Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences and R&D engineer at Astronika. A graduate of the AGH University of Science and Technology and the Space Resources Program at the Colorado School of Mines. At Astronika, he deals with the development of new technologies and the use of the company’s current knowledge and products in space projects, both research and flight. The company cooperates primarily with the European Space Agency. At the Space Research Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences, he studies the process of heat and mass flow in the icy regolith in the Permanently Shaded Regions of the Moon during the future heating of these deposits for water extraction. In his work, he uses both experimental and mathematical methods of simulating these phenomena.
FUTURE SPACE podcast: Asteroids and space debris. Experts: Kleomenis Tsiganis – Aristotele University of Thessaloniki and Mikołaj Krużyński – POLSA / Adam Mickiewicz University (UAM). Presenter: Paweł Uszyński.
Sorosh Shoaie is a Remote Sensing Specialist at VanderSat Dataprovider. He uses Earth observation data, monitor droughts. Why does he like working in the aerospace sector so much? And what was the education path he took, so he could do this work?
Charlotte Pouwels is a Test Engineer at Airbus and an Analogue Astronaut for ESA. At Airbus she performs (non) destructive testing of solar arrays in a cleanroom environment and she also creates 3D models & drawings in this project (SparkWing). At EuroMoonMars she participates in simulated Astronaut missions on earth to perform research for future space missions. And she is Head of Logistics. She studied Applied physics with a specialisation in Space and radiation. And she has the ambition to be a space astronaut, so she became an advanced diver and she takes flying lessons.
Kleomenis Tsiganis studied Physics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Since 2006 he has been serving at the University, now as an Associate Professor. His main research interests are celestial engineering and planetary science. His work focuses on the evolution of the solar system. He has co-authored the European Roadmap for Research in Astrobiology. Awards he has received for his work include the renaming of an asteroid to “(21775) Tsiganis” by the IAU. He is a member of the Hellenic Astronomical Society and the International Astronomical Union (IAU).
FUTURE SPACE podcast: Earth Observations. Experts:Klaudia Bielińska from CloudFerro, Jos de Laat – Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) and Sylwia Nasiłowska – CloudFerro. Presenter: Paweł Uszyński.