After months of online studying, being back to actual office work is relieving!

My name is Mathias, I am a 20-year-old French student, currently working as a R&D Intern for the ÖWF this summer. I study at ESTACA Paris-Saclay, and this internship is part of my aerospace engineering degree.

I found about the ÖWF while looking for an internship in the space industry in Austria, and I then realized I had already heard about their Mars analog missions. I have been a part of the ÖWF team for more than 3 weeks now, and so far, I have had very diversified tasks to work on!

I get to work on the AMADEE-20 program, and particularly on the preparation of the Mission Support Center here in Innsbruck. It is the place where the information gathered on the field in Israel will be treated live, and where all the backstage work happens. The past few weeks I reviewed and prepared the computers that the different teams will use during the upcoming mission.

On the other hand, I work – and that represents most of my duty here – on the ADLER CubeSat program. With my colleague Alexander Schmid, we constructed a working replica of the APID (Austrian Particle Impact Detector) instrument, in order to conduct series of tests on it. This instrument will be sent in Low-Earth orbit to improve our knowledge about small-sized space debris in Earth’s vicinity. While working on it, and thanks to my colleague’s pedagogical skills, I got to understand the challenges of this instrument’s conception and it allows me to better prepare my next task: designing the deployment mechanism for the next generation of the APID instrument. The latter will equip the ADLER-2 satellite, which will be twice the size of its predecessor.

It is a very challenging and interesting work as I must explore all the possibilities for mounting an instrument on a 6U CubeSat. Currently I am trying to see whether an origami-inspired mechanism could be a viable solution for our needs, or unnecessarily complex. It has me leaving my comfort zone and searching for new things, so it has been very enriching so far.

On my free time, I get to visit Innsbruck and its surroundings (I mean, how can I not mention the Alps?). I have been lucky to meet a lot of welcoming and friendly people, both in and out of work, so it definitely facilitates the life here!

In the end, it is a great experience. I feel like I am fully involved in the different programs, and that comes with a lot of independence as well, so do not hesitate to apply for an internship too!