On August 30, NASA opened a new building, the Aerospace Communications Facility (ACF). The new facility aims at opening doorways in quantum mechanics and AI-assisted interplanetary communication. It features cellular, radio and optical communications. This is part of the NASA Glenn Facility’s master plan to renovate and replace World War II-era buildings that have been a staple of the landscape surrounding Cleveland Hopkins Airport, where the Glenn Central campus is located.
This reporter recently interviewed Lauryn Leslie, an electrical engineer intern at NASA who is a graduate of Fairview High School. She is working on space communications at the ACF.
Currently a student at the University of Colorado Boulder, Leslie is working to develop antenna signals strong enough to stream 4k videos of the moon. In order to do this, she uses a program called MATRICS, which uses physical hardware connections, simulations and high-fidelity models to simulate conditions on the moon that would affect radio transmissions on the moon such as lunar dust mountains and craters and other rough terrain.
On Leslie’s current project, she rarely works alone. The new facility brings together over 80 researchers. The 4K moon signal project is very team-based. Leslie says, no single scientist does all the work on a problem alone. They also share credit when a team makes a breakthrough or solves a problem.
What is work like at NASA? Leslie says that as an intern there she has a good mix of hands-on learning and academic theory. Basically, NASA combines science with engineering. Leslie points to the experimental work she is doing that combines IT technology engineering with chemistry. Before her college and NASA journey, she took many difficult AP and CCP classes, mostly science-oriented. Her father was an electrical engineer. So, finding a place where science and engineering are both part of the daily challenge is a good fit for her. “It’s about seeing past the difficulty,” says Leslie. “Dream big and work hard”. Even as a student-athlete, playing for the University of Colorado Boulder’s tennis team, Leslie has been able to balance her studies with interning at NASA and is enjoying her senior year in college.
