Hello everyone, my name is Xavier Maréchal and I am an aerospace engineering student coming from France, right next to Paris. I study there at the ESTACA and this summer, I’m doing a 4-month internship at the OeWF until mid-August. The aerospace sector has fascinated me since I was a child, and this internship has been a truly amazing and challenging experience so far.

I found the OeWF because a student in my school did his internship there last year. After chatting with him, he convinced me that the association and Innsbruck would be places where I’d meet passionate and friendly people. So, I took a chance and here I am, just starting the second half of my internship now.

I really appreciated the first few weeks as I discovered the intricacies of different space projects I didn’t know anything about before. For example, I had to write a daily report for the AMADEE-24 mission that occurred in Armenia this spring. To do so, I needed to review all the details left by the Mission Support Center or a small On-Site Support-team (named GOST). It was truly captivating, like reading a scientific review from my childhood, but this time, I was part of it.

Currently, I am working on ADLER-2, the 6U CubeSat the OeWF launched nearly 18 months ago. My goal is to predict when it will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and burn up. I am using an ESA tool called DRAMA (Debris Risk Assessment and Mitigation Analysis) to predict the future orbit of the ADLER-2 and then estimate when it will re-enter. Of course, this was done before launch, but recently, the CubeSat started randomly tumbling. We suspect it’s due to the recent intense solar activity that led to attitude changes. I already calculated its average cross-sectional area to make an initial estimate of the re-entry date, and soon, I will access more data that will allow me to be much more precise.

In parallel, with the other intern named William, we worked on the Delta suits (spacesuits for education puropose) which will be sent for an Analog mission in Switzerland.

While some tasks require skills I haven’t learned in school yet, help and advice are always available, whether it’s from your close desk colleague, another intern in Vienna, or someone who helped the association years ago. The atmosphere in the office is very pleasant; everyone is open and willing to help, which makes it a very comfortable place to work.

Obviously, living in Innsbruck is wonderful. After spending the past 21 years next to Paris, seeing the mountains every day feels unreal! I’ve met incredible and welcoming people who have helped me explore the city and its stunning mountain surroundings. In my free time, I’m making the most of it, discovering as many places as I can before I have to go.

This internship is a great experience that allows me to discover the world of the space sector, and I am excited to see what new skills and knowledge I will learn next!

Author: Xavier Maréchal, OeWF intern

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