Interview with Elliot Jennis
Collaborating with NASA on a Robotic Rotorcraft Mission
Current Position and Field
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Q: Can you describe your current position and the field you work in?
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A: In aerospace engineering, predominantly aerothermal engineering, which is a sub-discipline of mechanical engineering.
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Daily Responsibilities
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Q: What does a typical day look like for you at work?
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A: I don't have a normal day, but if it existed, I spend much of my time at the computer working on or evaluating designs for the systems that I'm responsible for. Other times, I work on a lot of large test campaigns. In aerospace, we typically do a lot of hands-on work when it comes to testing our designs, and they have to be tested in a very non-traditional way, especially when you work on spacecraft. In those cases, I'm in a lab, working in environmental test chambers, in clean rooms, wearing bunny suits, and working with my hands.
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Career Journey
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Q: Can you give an overview of your career journey, including your education and previous jobs?
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A: Yeah, so I was interested in aerospace since I was a child. I don't think you've gotten to see this, but I got to watch some shuttle launches, which was really impactful. I focused a lot on math and science. At Dwight, I was not very good at English, but I did a lot of math and science APs, and then went to Lehigh University, where I got a mechanical engineering degree and an aerospace engineering minor. I then went to the University of Washington for my master's degree in aerospace engineering and studied rocket propulsion, particularly focusing on that for my thesis research.
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I had a couple internships. I worked on spacesuits in Delaware at a company down there and then worked for a small startup in San Francisco, designing and analyzing reentry capsules—those are things that can survive the heat of reentry with their payloads intact. Once I graduated from grad school, I moved to Baltimore, and now I currently work at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. There, I've worked on a ton of different things, from missiles to spacecraft, supporting various programs using my aerothermal/thermal expertise.
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Emerging Opportunities in Aerospace
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Q: What new career opportunities do you see emerging in aerospace over the next few years?
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A: Well, there’s a bunch of things. The field of aerospace is incredibly broad. If you wanted to limit it to just spacecraft— and even then, you have to be more specific. Sometimes when people think spacecraft, they think rockets, and rockets are a whole other beast, typically what gets a lot of headlines. But in spacecraft, satellites, or space exploration, the biggest growth area is going to be in human spaceflight—the Moon. NASA has a ton of money going into the Artemis programs, and there are a ton of private companies that are supporting that. There's a lot of money being put into developing lunar infrastructure, things like power plants, oxygen generators, and water and fuel generators. It is crazy how many companies are working for these very large grants that NASA has to help build up this lunar infrastructure.
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On the non-human side, planetary space exploration is not growing very much. The mission I am currently involved in is the only large mission that’s still ongoing because NASA’s budget has been cut in that area. But for growth opportunities, the commercial space sector is exploding. There are a ton of companies developing new types of satellites. One example is very low Earth orbit satellites. These actually have to be aerodynamically shaped to prevent atmospheric drag, but they still orbit the planet. In some cases, they can breathe small bits of molecular oxygen up there and use that for propulsion. That’s helping everybody, from the intelligence community taking better satellite photos to people trying to grow crops in remote parts of the world or monitoring pesticide and fertilizer use. It’s a broad field.
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There are very small satellites being developed, and very large constellations like SpaceX’s. Amazon is developing their own, and then there are smaller companies developing satellites that can do multiple maneuvers. Then there's the world of defense satellites, which is becoming more of a thing as we see adversaries like Russia and China put more money into their space programs. That’s in the headlines all the time now, so the space environment is dramatically expanding in many ways.
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Advice for Aspiring Aerospace Engineers
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Q: Do you have any advice for someone interested in pursuing a career in aerospace engineering?
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A: I would say it's good to know that many aerospace positions require both U.S. citizenship and, in some cases, a security clearance. A security clearance requires you to pass a U.S. background check and it requires that you don’t do illicit drugs, or if you do, that you disclose those. So, there's some amount of keeping that in mind, especially when you're younger. If you really want this career, you have to resist the peer pressures typically faced by people in college and high school. It's not a complete deal breaker, but it’s something to think about.
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Academically, you have to do well—that's kind of a given, but there's no minimum GPA requirement. I had a very average GPA in undergrad, and I'm still working on cool stuff. One of the key things is to be very detail-oriented, because a lot of these systems are very complicated, and paying attention to the small details is what will help you stand out as an engineer and make you really good at it. Also, a big piece of advice— and this is not always possible—go to grad school. Everybody who works in my field either comes in with a master's degree or gets one on the job while working. It's becoming more and more of a requirement.
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Career Reflection
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Q: Is there anything you would have done differently in your career?
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A: That's a good question. I don't really know. I don't think so. If you ask me that in a year, I could probably come up with a different answer, but things are pretty good. Maybe one thing that I would have done differently is in college, and in grad school as well, I would’ve spent a lot more time working on project teams. That’s a big thing that engineers have the opportunity to do, and it's like on-the-job experience before you get a job. Those project teams involve things like building race cars, submarines, airplanes, or rockets, all run by students. It gives you really great experience, and I didn't take advantage of that. I spent a lot of time doing outdoorsy stuff, but I think that would’ve helped me be better. A lot of people I see in my field who did that are way ahead of the curve compared to their peers.
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Cutting-Edge Technologies
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Q: What new or cutting-edge technologies are emerging in your field?
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A: Heavy-lift rockets are going to completely change the industry. The big one is SpaceX’s Starship. That’s going to totally change what we can do and put up in space. Blue Origin is also going to have their New Glenn come up soon. It's going to revolutionize everything. It’ll make everything super cheap. It’s going to be amazing. I’m very excited.
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Short-Term and Long-Term Career Goals
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Q: Do you have any short-term or long-term career plans or goals?
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A: I don’t really know. I’m at a weird point in my career because I’m leaving my current job in a few months to move in with my fiancé, who lives on the other side of the country. My short-term goal is to make that go smoothly. I’m still working in aerospace, just moving to a smaller satellite company in San Francisco. Long-term, I want to work in human spaceflight. That’s where a lot of my passions are, so I’ll continue developing my skills to transition into that field and help further missions like Artemis or Mars—whatever that looks like, I want to be a part of it.
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Use of Math in Aerospace Engineering
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Q: How much do you use advanced math, like calculus, in your current job?
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A: We use a ton of algebra and geometry daily. There’s definitely some calculus, but not much of it is done by hand. A lot of calculations are done through coding, using tools like Python or Matlab. Engineers typically write code to solve problems, and many of those problems involve calculus, but the calculations are handled by built-in functions in those coding platforms.
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The Most Common Programming Languages in Aerospace Engineering
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Q: How much do you use advanced math, like calculus, in your current job?
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A: It depends on preference. I know people who like to code in C, but a lot of engineers use Matlab. However, Python is incredibly versatile and widely used. If I had to give advice to high school students, it would be to learn Python because it’s useful in many fields. Matlab is very specific to engineering and data science, but Python will take you far no matter what field you go into.
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Artificial Intelligence in Aerospace
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Q: Do you think that AI has any kind of future role in space exploration?
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A: So it definitely does in the broad field of aerospace, but it has different applications. I would say the large language model version of artificial intelligence—like ChatGPT—a lot of people like to use that. The challenge in aerospace is ChatGPT is connected to the Internet, so a lot of times you can't use that. So we have versions of ChatGPT that we can use, and that’s to just streamline productivity.
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You know, if you have a test that has some data that’s outputted in a text file, and you want to quickly be able to process that into a different format, I have asked ChatGPT multiple times, "Hey, write me a small bit of code to fix this." That’s a use case of an existing AI tool. But as far as applying real AI principles to engineering, sometimes we do what's called digital engineering or model-based systems engineering. Both of those don’t have to mean anything to you, but really what it does is, you can give an AI—it’s really just like an optimization function—you can give it inputs, and this computer program tries to optimize your inputs to meet a set of criteria.
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It’s a way to attempt to have computers design systems. For example, if you have a drone and you want a certain form factor, a certain size, certain weight, and a certain amount of power, you can put those requirements into computer programs, and they will spit out shapes and aerodynamic characteristics, as well as engine and rotor sizes. In some cases, even the payloads those things have to carry. So that’s a real thing people are doing. It’s not great right now, but it’s being used in the industry by companies, and it’s being used on things that wind up being built.
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That’s an evolving part of the field that I have no doubt will grow as AI’s intelligence grows. That’s the only obvious example I can think of.
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Favorite Part of the Job
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Q: What’s your favorite part of working in aerospace engineering?
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A: I realize that it’s really hard. In some cases, it’s very satisfying to solve a challenging problem, especially when the problem has never been done before. It’s really cool to feel like you’re at the forefront of something. And then, just the coolness factor—I don’t know exactly the word for it, but everything just feels so cool to me. You know, when you say, “I am working on a giant octocopter that’s powered by a chunk of plutonium, and it’s going to fly to one of Saturn's moons and look at the methane lakes on that planetary body,” like, that’s freaking wild! It's just totally crazy.
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A lot of times during the day, I have to remind myself, “Oh my God! This is real! This is not some pipe dream." But day to day, what I really, really enjoy is working with people, because engineering is a team sport. It’s not something you can do as one person. There are a lot of meetings, a lot of collaboration, and people spitballing ideas. That’s also incredibly gratifying and enjoyable. When you have a really effective team, it really makes everything and every day feel fun.
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Overview of Space Mission to Titan
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Q: Can you talk a bit about the mission you are working on?
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A: Sure. It’s a Civil Space mission planned for 2028. It is the largest flying vehicle that humans will send to another planetary body—specifically, Titan, which is a moon of Saturn. Titan is very cold and has a thick atmosphere denser than Earth's, but its low gravity makes it a good place to fly. We’re sending a rotorcraft there, and because it’s too far from the sun to use solar panels, we have to use a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) that uses plutonium to make electricity. My primary work involves solving the thermal problems to keep the internals of the the lander warm in temperatures as low as -180°C. The mission is exciting because it could expand our knowledge of other bodies that might harbor life, given the presence of liquid methane on Titan. The lander won’t reach Titan until 2035, so there’s a long wait.
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Q: What will you do in between the launch and the landing of the mission?
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Answer: I’m leaving, so I won’t be working on it anymore. For the team, they will transition to another project. The design engineers will no longer work on the mission, but they may be called upon to help solve problems during the mission, like if there are unexpected issues with the thermal sensors or other components. They’ll be consulted because they built the spacecraft and will have the expertise needed to assist with any operational problems.
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**name of specific mission isn't included for safety and privacy concerns**
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We would like to thank Mr. Jennis for the time he spent speaking with us, and we hope you were able to learn something from the insight he provided
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From,
Finn and Cooper