My name is Joachim BUI and I have been studying aerospace engineering at the ESTACA in France until the end of February 2019. Two weeks ago, I started my end-of-studies internship at the Austrian Space Forum.

In September 2018, Aline Decadi who is a former student of my engineering school made a presentation about analog research. She focused especially on the AMADEE-18 Mars Analog Mission in which she was involved as a crew member. During her presentation the Aouda suit drew my attention. Then after further investigation on the OeWF website, I learned that the association has started the development of SERENITY, the successor of the Aouda suit. At the same time, I was looking for an end-of-study internship to get my engineering degree. So, because I was interested in uncommon and space related projects, I applied to work on this suit.

As mentioned in the title, the first two weeks at the OeWF is an integration phase, during which the new intern gets many tasks to do. That includes some custom tasks chosen by the supervisor depending on both the associations’ needs as well as the intern’s skills and expectations. This period is an opportunity for the supervisor to look at how the intern manages time in order to deliver work in time. Personally, I had three things to do.

I had to learn about Mars, first about its geography then about few of its special features. Especially about Martian dichotomy which defined by a drop of elevation between its northern and southern hemispheres. Then also, about the presence of water on the red planet.

As a second task I had to get familiar with the documentation of SERENITY and Aouda. Especially because the project supervisor expects me to interact with every subsystem team and plan the mechanical integration of each subassembly of the structure.

As a third task I had to improve a training device for analog astronauts. This device consists of a case with an electronic circuit which toggles LEDs in a sequence when it’s powered. A tower is attached to the case and on its tip there is a fake antenna which must be deployed during the training procedure. This device is provided with few tools and the recruits must manipulate it while wearing the very bulky gloves of the suit simulator. When I received it the “tower”, which maintained the deployable antenna, was fixed by a temporary system. My task was to replace this tower with a stronger solution, which I did by 3D printed parts and a threaded steel bar.

I really appreciated working on this training device because it provided me the opportunity to become familiar with both 3D printing and a CAD software I never used before.