NASA engineers 'landed' at Imperial to inspire school students and visit world-leading space instrument facilities.
On Friday 11 September, two NASA engineers based at the NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston visited Imperial College London's South Kensington campus for a Big Ideas NASA Live schools' event, supported by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851.
Howard Hu and Branelle Rodriguez were part of the Artemis II mission, NASA's first crewed lunar flyby in half a century, which took place in April this year. Howard and Branelle are part of the leadership team for the Orion spacecraft, as Orion Program Manager and Artemis II Vehicle Manager respectively.
Howard and Branelle took part in NASA Live with Big Ideas host Lottie Selwyn. They spoke to over 200 secondary school students gathered in Imperial's Blackett lab, with more than 50,000 8-to-18-year-olds joining online from across the country.
Howard and Branelle were then taken on a tour of Imperial's Space Instruments Lab, a world-leading centre for space instrumentation. The tour was given by Helen O'Brien, who has led the technical teams responsible for delivering the magnetometers for ESA's Solar Orbiter, NASA's IMAP, and upcoming HelioSwarm missions, and Jonathan Eastwood, Co-Director for Imperial's School of Convergence Science - Space, Security and Telecoms.
Meeting London's next-generation scientists
Before the NASA engineers arrived, the audience took part in a Big Ideas space quiz, with Dr Simon Foster (Physics) delivering the answers and sharing insights into space science careers. The NASA team were then given a huge, warm welcome from the visiting students, who were ready to learn about the Artemis II mission and the spacecraft carrying astronauts to the moon, Orion.
Howard and Branelle gave a brief presentation explaining their roles in the mission and their backgrounds. The students in the room and tuning in online were then invited to ask questions which ranged from "How do astronauts shower in space?" to "What button in the spacecraft has the coolest function?" The online audience answered the question, "What would you solve first to make it possible to live on the Moon?" with their suggestions being presented in a word cloud.
Watch the recording of the livestream to find out Howard and Branelle's answers
