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The Colorado Space Grant Consortium offers CU students the opportunity to  develop skills for the workforce of tomorrow

Skylar Edwards | Photos by Elliot Whitehead

Headquartered at CU Boulder is the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, an organization that provides students access to space through innovative courses, hands-on projects and interactive outreach programs. Students from a variety of majors interact and engage in an immersive skill-building curriculum. 

In my own experience, Space Grant has provided me the opportunity to explore my passion for space exploration and research, while also gaining workforce skills. Space Grant provides a helpful foundation for any student that gets involved like Hanna Gailmanis and Joaquin Castillo, to grow as an engineer. 

Gailmanis has been apart of the Space Grant Program since her freshman year and enjoys the hands-on experience it provides her. “It is one thing to learn about a concept in a class, but it is a completely different experience to actually utilize that concept to a real-world application,” Gailmanis said. “My favorite thing about Space Grant is that everything we do is for the purpose of learning. Every project, every program, every day at Space Grant revolves around ensuring that the over 100 students involved learn something new.” 

Space Grant looks for highly motivated and enthusiastic students. The organization hires students for projects once a semester through an online application. During the application process, students can see which projects are available that semester and can apply for one or multiple projects. From there, students are interviewed by Space Grant staff to see if they are a good fit for a project. Each project is student-led, typically with subteams and a project manager. Schedules are made for the benefit of each member. Some positions available require specific skills or experience but many positions only require the interest to learn and become engaged in a project. Within each team there are multiple subteams where students can tailor their skills to a certain area of work. Whether that skill be manufacturing, projects design, electrical systems, or research, there is always a part of the project a student can work on. 

Currently, I am working on the ThwaitesAmundsen Regional Survey and Network Project. The TARSAN project team works in collaboration with Space Grant and the National Snow and Ice Data Center to help understand the regional processes driving surface and basal ice melt and to connect this ice melt with its impacts on ice-shelf stability and ground line retreat. The project provides a unique opportunity for students to experience firsthand how to carry out scientific field research in Antarctica using cutting-edge technologies with established scientists in an international setting. This year our team built a pressure vessel that can withstand more than 2000 psi. In addition, we calibrated a thermistor system and wrote a proposal for a battery turbine system. Working at Space Grant has helped me exceed my own expectations for what I thought I could accomplish over Freshman year - I have more skills and knowledge than I ever thought possible! 

Castillo has been participating in Space Grant for three years, and last summer he was project manager for PolarCube. He managed about 20 students who worked on a device that can perform tropospheric temperature profiling in order to assist with weather models for severe weather conditions, such as storms and hurricanes. The PolarCube project was completed in mid-March and awaits its launch date later this year in the second ever launch of Virgin Orbit’s new LauncherOne system. 

“Space Grant has provided me with invaluable opportunities to not only apply myself but challenge myself as well,” Castillo said. “It is a space where I have been able to work alongside and learn from some truly incredible people who have helped shape my understanding and appreciation for engineering as a whole.” 

Castillo also worked on the PolarCube during both his freshman and sophomore years. As a freshman, he was the Structures Design Engineer. “My primary tasks were to reorganize the CAD file system, resolve any remaining issues with the satellite structure and mechanical systems, support any other teams needing testing fixtures or mock hardware, help finalize the mechanical design of the radiometer payload MiniRAD, oversee the manufacturing of nearly all the satellite’s flight components (including creating drawings for many parts), and perform the integration and assembly of all flight hardware,” Castillo said. 

Later on, he worked on designing a new vaned baffle for the star camera, which required metal powder additive manufacturing as well as a redesign for their deployable solar panel wings to have a high density packing of monocrystalline cells with a 2024 aluminum frame for added panel rigidity. “These were fun to make”, Castillo said. “By the second semester of my sophomore year I also took on the role of Chief Systems Engineer, where I wrote plans for all the environmental tests for our flight unit to qualify us for launch. I also interfaced with our mission integrator and NASA to ensure our satellite was compliant with their requirements.”

This semester, Gailmanis is the project manager for the Colorado Space Grant’s Lab Team. “Lab Team is an interdisciplinary group of students who work on a variety of projects for Space Grant. The three main focuses of Lab Team are creating workshop tutorial videos, designing and building the beacon for the Colorado Robotics Challenge, and the general upkeep of lab equipment at Space Grant,” Gailmanis said. 

Working at Space Grant personally challenged me to use my problem-solving skills to work individually and in team settings. Seeing students grow from their projects into the workforce has given me motivation to challenge myself and think creatively. It is not every day I get to see engineering and space in a whole new way with people who inspire and motivate me. Students can look at the projects description on the Colorado Space Grant Consortium website. To apply, students should be on the lookout for when the applications opens typically at the beginning or end of each semester, students can then fill out the interest form on the website for a project of their interest.

To any student looking to improve their engineering capabilities, I highly encourage you to reach beyond and look to gain exposure into the field of engineering. The skills you are learning today can be very beneficial to project innovation. Being involved at Space Grant as a freshman has taught me so much about the field of engineering, so what is stopping you from reaching for the stars?