STEMalive! Inspirational speaker - Stefanie Kohl, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd

STEMalive! events are a collaboration between educational charity, SATRO and Dr Elaine Hickmott of EH Enterprises. The events are designed to bring together STEM professionals and students in Years 11, 12 & 13 in a supportive environment to have cool conversations and be inspired by real career stories and insights in science, technology, engineering and maths. 

The next event is taking place on Thursday 10th March at St Peter's School, Guildford. We already have four STEM speakers confirmed! Over the last few weeks, we have been blogging a short bio for each of our speakers. 

Up last, but certainly not least, is Stefanie Kohl!

Stefanie Kohl

Systems Engineer

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd

Stefanie did her A-Levels in Physics and Mathematics and, following a gap year, she enrolled in a 5-year Mechanical Engineering course at the TU Dresden in Germany. She later specialised in space systems engineering and did various internships and student exchanges in Germany, Sweden and Holland.

After finishing university with ‘Diplom Ingenieur’ (equivalent to a ‘Masters’ degree) she went to Holland to work for the European Space Agency as a young graduate. There she worked in the Concurrent Design Facility on feasibility studies for future missions. After this 15-month placement she accepted a job as systems engineer at SSTL in Guildford, where she has been working for five years.

Stefanie is currently the lead systems engineer of a three satellite constellation which was launched in July 2015. She has worked on the project from the beginning to hand over to the customer which was a unique and amazing opportunity.

SSTL Website:                                http://www.sstl.co.uk/

SSTL on Twitter:                            @SurreySat

Stefanie on LinkedIn:                    https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanie-kohl-56060625

STEMalive! is FREE for schools to attend – Contact Lisa@satro.org.uk

Engineers share your knowledge and experience with us – Contact jules@satro.org.uk

Toby Peterken - SATROclub Extended Research Placement - Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd.

Toby Peterken of Esher College is currently completing a SATROclub Extended Work Placement at Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL). There is a GNSS Reflectometry Experiment on Tech Demo Sat, and data from this is being downloaded regularly. Toby's project is to post process this data, as guided by the team at SSTL, to try and find relations to geographical features on the ground. This could include streams, ice or other features. The project also involves processing the positioning data and relationship to previous ground testing. Here's what Toby had to say about his experience so far...

Week One

"When I first got here I was shown around the buildings, the different departments, the laboratories and the manufacturing area.

 I was then given a task to be able to make the data easy to visualise. I had to edit a Matlab script so that it automatically generates KML (Google earth) files that display the data from the satellite as coloured paths on the earth’s surface. So that first day was spent trying to learn KML. The second day I started on the Matlab program and got to control parts of the satellite. 

The next two days were spent finishing off/fixing the code. Now it displays signal strength, antenna direction and signal strength compared with antenna direction on Google earth. It automatically loads all the files in each folder and makes the path transparent if the value is too low. I also created a script that draws graphs of other data if needed. 

All of this will be so that it is easy to see if signal strength has correlation with landforms."

Week Two

"As the track data was processed by my program, I was asked to rewrite part of the satellite control program, so that the camera timings were automated. It took 3 days to get it so that the timings didn't clash with other collections and so that it always turned off over the same point over the Earth. It was used to set satellite timings and if it continues to work, could be used permanently.

I then started to look at the data. I realised there was too much information so I created a script to load only information in a particular area and time interval. Doing so I was able to look at isolated regions and look for patterns in the data. So far it seems to be sensitive to water."

SATRO wishes Toby the best of luck for the future, and hopes that he enjoys the rest of his placement with SSTL!