My name is Sophie Berger, and I am an Austrian student in aviation engineering. As a part of the studies, I have done a four-month internship from April to July and my bachelor thesis at the Austrian Space Forum (OeWF) in Innsbruck. What I encountered at the OeWF are people passionate about space and their related work.

During my time in Innsbruck, I worked mainly in the Adler-1 CubeSat project. More precisely, I did a characterization of the piezoelectric sensor foils of the Austrian Particle Impact Detector (APID) of Adler-1. I conducted drop test to simulate the impact of space debris. I had to develop a suitable test set-up, write a manual on how to conduct the drop tests and of course analyzation of the test results. So, my field of work was very variedly, and so my gained knowledge.

I could gain hands-on experience in the fields of electronics, software engineering and test engineering. Sometimes my tasks were challenging, but there was always someone I could ask for help. At this point I want to thank my colleagues for the support! Moreover, together with a colleague I held a workshop for children within the DiSTARS project, which was a nice experience and also a possibility for me to learn more about space.

I would especially like to emphasize the pleasant atmosphere in the office, I felt very comfortable from the beginning on. I am very happy that I got to meet such nice and helpful people, sharing the same passion for aviation and aerospace. Since the focus of my studies is on aviation, I have had rather little contact with space engineering in the past, but the internship raised my interest in the broad topic of space.

Author: Sophie Berger