Discover more from Views
#32 Ariadna Farres: insights from NASA's legendary research lab, building the future of space tech, lessons to improve STEM ecosystems
Astrodynamics research at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, PhD in Applied Mathematics from University of Barcelona
We are Pol Fañanás and Gerard García, two friends passionate about tech, startups, and VC, getting views from exceptional people doing cool things and sharing it for free with those who lack access. Thanks for reading!
Ariadna Farres is an Astrodynamics Specialist working as researcher for the Navigation and Mission Design Branch at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, a legendary NASA space research laboratory, currently home to the largest organization of scientists and engineers in the United States dedicated to increase the knowledge of Earth, Solar System, and the Universe.
At NASA, Ariadna’s main role is astrodynamics and solar radiation pressure specialist for the Roman Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, where she analyzes different models for solar radiation pressure accelerations and how this force affects the trajectory and station-keeping cost during mission operations.
She holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Barcelona, a degree in Mathematics from Autonomous University of Barcelona, and completed multiple post-doctoral research fellowships at the Institute de Mathématique de Bourgogne, at the Institute de Mécanique Céleste et Calcul des Éphémérides, and at the University of Barcelona.
Summary
1️⃣ Starting from zero in Barcelona
2️⃣ PhD in Mathematics and space navigation with solar sails
3️⃣ Breaking into NASA
4️⃣ Insights from a legendary NASA’s space research lab
5️⃣ Present and future of the best space tech
6️⃣ Education fails that explain STEM deficiencies
7️⃣ US secrets to be a global leader in technology
8️⃣Advice for young people who want to build a STEM career
1️⃣ From normal origins in Barcelona to space research in NASA, what was the beginning of such an adventure?
Well, my “beginning story” is not an “I always knew I was going to make it” type of thing. In fact, if I’m being honest, it wasn’t like that at all and I believe it is good to share that not all paths are perfect and crystal clear.
I felt the calling for technical stuff since I was quite young, I did better in high school on subjects closer to the science/engineering worlds, than in more humanistic subjects like languages and history where I was not as good. As a result, and based on how the education system is built, I could not get to the university I wanted. My initial idea was to get into the double degree of Mathematics and Telecommunications Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, but my average grade was not good enough because the negative impact of non-technical subjects and I couldn’t get in.
So, I ended up doing just Mathematics at another institution, and I choose the Autonomous University of Barcelona because it felt like a fun environment. Then after getting my Maths degree, when I had to choose what to do with my life, I just didn’t know. I couldn’t see myself pursuing a career in Didactics of Mathematics, neither wanted to be a high school teacher, nor follow any type of consulting/finance type of career - so I decided to delay the decision, pursue a PhD in Mathematics, and find out along the way what to do with my career. This would eventually lead me to NASA, but at that time I was just focused on the next step and trying to have more clarity about what I wanted to become.
2️⃣ When did you come across the world of space tech?
When I was thinking about where to do my PhD, I spoke with a professor at the University of Barcelona who was working on the application of dynamical systems (a field of mathematics) into space related problems context. I found really cool the possibility of using mathematics for space mission design and I chose this uni.
I loved mathematics, space, and sailing with a small ship as a hobby whenever I could, so I ended doing my PhD in the intersection of these elements - specifically around the dynamics of a solar sail in the Earth-Sun system. Which oversimplifying could be explained as a sail used on a spacecraft (e.g. a satellite) that is propelled by sunlight. So as photons collide with it, momentum is gained without fail because the pressure of solar radiation, and it can act as a new mean of propulsion without the need of traditional fuel or engines. Really interesting for space exploration use cases for example.
3️⃣ How was getting to NASA?
Again, not a clear path but more of a rollercoaster!
When I finished my PhD, I continued pursuing postdoctoral fellowships. My goal wasn’t to get to NASA or ESA, I just wanted to protect my freedom of research and improve my profile with new ingredients like international experience, since I had in mind trying to get a job as a university professor and I was told that the exposure to research in other countries could help my candidacy for the position.
Long story short, I did some research in France at the Institute de Mathématique de Bourgogne and at the Institute de Mécanique Céleste et Calcul des Éphémérides, but I just couldn’t get a tenure-track position at the university back at home. They rejected me over and over again.
I think I had a profile that was too different, and I just didn’t fit. I had a hybrid profile between mathematics, aerospace engineering, and other stuff more “applied”. And this profile was simply not a fit for how the education system was set up in Catalonia at that time (some years ago). Interdisciplinary angles were undervalued.
Anyway, I had an existential crisis because I wanted to come back to Barcelona and teach but I only received negative answers. I was very lost and felt like being in the wrong place. I even considered taking maybe 6 months or 1 year off, detox, and travel the world.
However, I talked with a university professor, I shared my situation with him, and asked for advice. He told me that I could try to do a research stay for some months at NASA taking advantage of a past collaboration that the space agency had with the University of Barcelona. This professor knew some people at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). I couldn’t go to JPL because at that time there was no need for my profile, however in the GSFC they gave me a green flag. Thanks to all the process being done through the University of Barcelona, it ended up being quite easy for Goddard to have me working for them, and I ended up doing a 4 month research period with them in Maryland, US. Sometimes the struggles and rejects are signals that ultimately get you to the place where you belong!
4️⃣ Insights from thriving at NASA as an outsider?
Well now looking back it’s kind of fun, because after my first period at NASA I was actually looking forward to coming back to Barcelona as a tenure-track. I felt it was my moment to finally achieve what I wanted for so long! And … I failed again!
I couldn’t get placement as tenure-track one more time and I told NASA: “look, thank you for everything, it has been amazing. I can’t tell you what I’m going to do next because I don’t know because I just realized I have no job”. But they were happy with my work and they asked me if I was willing to come back to Goddard in case they’d manage to get more funding for the project we were working on. I said yes, they got the funding, and I came back - this second time for a 7-month period.
My first project was more about modelling the pressure that solar radiation has on any satellite. Basically, dealing with a lot of mathematical models to describe how factors like the shape and orientation of the satellite with regards the Sun can affect the trajectory of the satellite, or how to be able to forecast with maximum precision its orbit in the long term.
To grow within NASA from there, what I tried to do was to understand how my very specific skills fit the big picture. I started getting in contact with other projects and I tried to make myself useful for these other teams. Maybe from the dynamical system point of view we could improve the control manoeuvres of the satellite instead of just using an optimization black box, or we could leverage the solar radiation pressure insights for other satellites where this knowledge was not being applied, or see how to optimize fuel use, or we could better adapt to any changes that can happen in the launch stage.
5️⃣ What are your views regarding space tech future being exciting again?
Everything that goes around the Earth is more of a routine right now because I’d say we already know pretty well how everything works. There is a lot of state of the art, the main space agencies have built procedures, and things are very systematized. For this reason, private companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, … are coming up to play the space game. The new thing, in my opinion, is more about the moral doubts of having so much stuff flying around our planet and not enough regulation.
This introduces one of the most relevant challenges that we see in present and future space tech right now, and it is that the main global powers do whatever they want, and the rest of the world does what they can. Everything is evolving really fast lately, but we need more collaborative work. Global fear of repeating the climate change issues could alter this “feudalism”. In space tech the answer to having too many satellites has historically been more of a “well, we will see” and not so much a collaborative urgency to tackle the problem together. Especially now that we are going through a very intense geopolitical paradigm shift. The space used to be considered something that belonged to the whole human race, but this could be disrupted with the private industry becoming a key player.
It will be interesting to see the derivatives of this context since for instance there are new problems such as astronomers not being able to have clear views due to so much satellite from different players orbiting Earth, also not having established rules about what to do when satellites finish their design life, or countries operating in a way that can be efficient for them but a pain for others (e.g. China planning a launch/mission without expecting to save any fuel for a more controlled landing resulting in something falling from the sky out of control forcing another country to close airspace).
However, it is not all about the nature of the political behaviour of these big players. New technology like artificial intelligence is also making a lot of noise in this industry with very exciting potential use cases such as exponential improvement of solving optimization problems in astrodynamics or being able to operate spacecrafts remotely instead of strong dependance on ground stations. How? Thanks to leveraging AI that can absorb data, process it, manoeuvre, and monitor by itself without the need of a big team of people on Earth controlling every detail and taking every decision. Enabling an autonomous satellite to explore space regions far from earth through AI with less need of human supervision is an exciting future view for space tech.
That being said, still a lot of noise in the factors that I mentioned so it is important to continue tracking the development of the industry in order to add clarity.
6️⃣ What are we doing wrong in education to have big deficiencies in STEM?
Three main elements come to my mind:
Lack of role models. First, there is simply a lack of proper role models, and if we talk about diverse profiles, this problem is even bigger. In my opinion, to get more young people to get into STEM careers you need to make them feel some connection with these career paths. You need to show them that there are people like them thriving in it.
Bad storytelling. Unfortunately, story telling around science, technology, engineering, and maths, is super boring most of the time. So many times, the education system teaches young students that science is about a boring teacher writing cryptic stuff in a blackboard and solving problems by himself. It is a shame because STEM is the door to so many awesome things, however I don’t think the education system manages to explain this appropriately.
Inefficient evaluation. It is cool to talk about references, storytelling, and new education methodologies such as learning by projects - but if we continue doing evaluations on students with the same old systems based on pure memorisation without understanding, I don’t think the situation is going to improve significantly. We need innovation in the way we measure student’s success.
7️⃣ What should other ecosystems learn from the US in order to be more competitive in key industries like space?
Again, I’d highlight 3 things:
Less bureaucracy. Europe should learn to be less bureaucratic about everything. There are so many examples of this like for instance to apply for a research fellowship in Spain I remember having to share papers to justify almost every step I have ever done since I was a baby - in the US with a CV I was done.
Bridging education and real world together. Building more solid bridges connecting the education world and the real word is important too. In the US there is way more interaction between universities and relevant private/public entities where you can do pretty cool jobs. Companies in the States have a lot of programmes to attract students, from summer internships to fellowships and any other stuff. The impact that this has in the American ecosystem is huge and extremely different to what I experienced in Europe and specially in Spain.
Tech startup culture. In the US you can feel an incredible heritage that orbits around praising the importance of building new impactful things and accepting that failure is a likely outcome, yet not being discouraged by it. In Europe the feeling is more about the need of having a very clear idea of what you are going to do and how, because failing will be considered more negative.
8️⃣ Advice for young people that want to make a career in technology?
It is very difficult to give this kind of advice to anyone, but I’d say optimize for the intersection of passion and context that drives you towards happiness.
Maybe it is a bit simplistic, but I’d say try to focus on what you enjoy the most. This seems obvious but so many times you see people more focused on building up their CV and then eventually end up feeling miserable in a place where they don’t like what they do.
On top of that, understand the context you are in and if it is good for you. Enjoying what you do is great but evidently, you’ll also need this to be somewhat aligned with a context where you can live a decent life. At the same time, you can be pursuing something you like in a solid context but start pushing too hard driven by factors like money or prestige which can get you into a shitty toxic environment. Be careful about what you choose and the impact on your wellbeing. If you are happy, you’ll be better at your job and more fulfilled anyway.
And at last, try to be peaceful and avoid extreme obsession. Choosing educational paths as a young student doesn’t necessarily determine your future 100%. Sometimes we have the feeling we must build perfect paths to succeed and reach true happiness, but that is not true - take advantage of the opportunities that are presented to you but also be open to the unexpected that is aligned with your vision.
Big thanks Ariadna for sharing your views with us!
Big thanks to you, reader, for your time and interest!
If you enjoyed it, subscribe and we’ll be back with you. 🙏🏼