Get to know an Astroscale U.S. Intern: Meredith Clark
Introduce yourself! Where did you grow up?
I’m Meredith Clark and I’m from Houston, Texas. With Houston being such a “space city”, I’ve always wanted to work in the aerospace industry. Working at Astroscale is my biggest dream actually!
What is your role at Astroscale?
I’m an Engineering Intern. Currently I’m working on emulating LEXI’s space camera. I’ve done extensive research on how our space camera will operate and recreated all the important parts of it through software. When it’s done, it’ll be used to simulate real, flight-like scenarios. This will allow our AIT team to begin to interface and test the software to see how LEXI’s overall flight software will analyze and react to images in real-time. The overall emulation of the camera will be one of the first attempts at integration (the I of AIT) for the LEXI payload and mark the beginning of a big portion of what it takes to make the LEXI design a reality.
Where do you go to college? What do you study?
I go to Purdue and I study Mechanical Engineering. Someone that I know who works in space encouraged me to do Mechanical Engineering because it gives you more opportunities. Aerospace Engineering is like building rockets and things but a lot of the stuff in space – like satellites – just goes back to Mechanical Engineering.
What originally sparked your interest in space?
Behind one of my old houses, there was a cornfield. This guy would fly by in a crop duster plane every morning – he must’ve been a really good pilot because he would fly really low to the ground and make the houses shake. I thought it was just the coolest thing, so then I got into planes and then I was like “think bigger”!
Why did you choose to intern at Astroscale?
I think it was Astrocale’s sustainability angle. Because I’m getting a minor in horticulture, I’ve always been really into environmental stuff. I thought that Astroscale was a good way to bring my two interests together.
What has been the highlight of your internship so far?
My favorite part is just how nice everyone is and how laid back the office is. I think this is literally the perfect office setting.
What are you looking forward to in the upcoming weeks?
Testing my software. I’m making software that simulates the camera on LEXI so we are going to put everything together and see if it runs.
Who at Astroscale has been a great mentor to you and why?
Davin. He’s been great. He always makes sure that I’m okay and he helps me when I’m stuck.
How do you spend your time outside of work?
At Purdue I play a lot of soccer. I’ve also gotten into rock climbing because we have a good rock climbing wall… Recently, I just got to get to know my roommates in Denver. Last weekend we made dinner together and played TopGolf with our neighbor.
Star Wars or Star Trek?
I don’t care. But I guess Star Wars because my dad is big on it.
Anything else?
Go Astroscale!
