Consider meticulously handcrafted objects, and sure issues come instantly to thoughts: positive artwork, unique automobiles, luxurious timepieces.
However Pasadena native Steve Barajas spends his days constructing a bespoke merchandise that’s on one other degree completely: NASA’s Europa Clipper.
BUSINESS
What do you do for work?
That’s the query My L.A. Workday solutions. The sequence takes you inside a day on the job with a few of the metropolis’s most fascinating individuals. Interviews are edited for size and readability.
The 13,000-pound behemoth, with a solar-array wingspan the size of a basketball court docket, is likely one of the area company’s most formidable efforts. It’s on an October countdown to launch to Jupiter and its moon Europa, atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, to search out out whether or not life exists within the deep ocean believed to lie beneath Europa’s icy exterior.
The central physique of the $5-billion Europa Clipper arrived in June 2022 on the La Cañada Flintridge campus of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the painstaking last meeting of parts shipped from throughout the U.S. and Europe. That’s the place Barajas is available in.
Barajas, 35, is a mechanical engineer main a staff that, in coordination with different JPL specialists, installs essential {hardware} for the mission. Barajas describes some excessive factors with a parental aptitude: There’s the magnetometer that would verify whether or not an ocean exists beneath the Europa ice; the mass spectrometer that can analyze gases in Europa’s ambiance; the infrared cameras that can map the moon’s floor composition, temperature and roughness; and the photo voltaic panels that can assist energy the spacecraft’s devices.
A mannequin of NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Instances)
The mission’s momentum to liftoff didn’t spare the Europa Clipper staff when JPL in early February laid off 530 individuals, or about 8% of its workforce, due to uncertainties over congressional funding for NASA. Though the job cuts, the second spherical this 12 months, had been felt “throughout the NASA household,” NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson mentioned, “the Europa Clipper mission will proceed as deliberate.”
In his official NASA bio, Barajas recollects his childhood fascination with area. “As a child, I keep in mind passing the signal alongside the 210 Freeway that learn ‘NASA-JPL Subsequent Exit,’ pondering it was so cool that NASA was so shut,” it reads.
The UC Berkeley graduate, who joined JPL in 2016 from Aerojet Rocketdyne, mentioned his work has taught him the artwork of delayed gratification. If the Europa Clipper launches on schedule from the Kennedy Area Heart in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Barajas must wait 5½ years for it to reach at Europa, about 488 million miles from Earth, the place it should carry out dozens of flybys of the moon to gather information.
“I’m engaged on a spacecraft that can hopefully discover one thing profound sooner or later, and dealing with individuals who share the identical ardour,” he mentioned.
When JPL finishes the build-out, Barajas might be a part of the staff that flies to Florida in Might for launch preparations, with liftoff scheduled for as early as Oct. 10.
The Instances spent a day with Barajas on the job late final 12 months. The interview was edited for size and readability.
5 a.m.
Barajas begins his day learning a pile of exercise studies from yesterday’s work to create a tactical schedule for the mechanical engineers on his staff.
At the moment is an enormous day for the Europa Clipper staff. They’ll be testing the craft’s thermal pumping system, the final main addition to the spacecraft’s vault, a thick-walled aluminum alloy field that holds the spacecraft’s “mind”: its electronics and computer systems.
An inside take a look at NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Instances)
“The thermal pump is the center of the spacecraft,” pumping fluid via tubing to manage the craft’s temperature, Barajas mentioned. The dayong effort is hazardous due to the excessive strain used to check the system with helium, a nonflammable gasoline.
Mechanical engineer Steve Barajas in a convention room discussing plans with colleagues for the day’s work.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Instances)
7 a.m.
The Europa Clipper’s tall silvery core stands in JPL’s Area Meeting Facility within the Excessive Bay 1 clear room surrounded by non permanent scaffolding. In a close-by convention room, Barajas represents the mechanical engineering staff as he compares notes for the day forward with colleagues from {the electrical} engineering and methods groups.
“A few of what we’re discussing are small particulars. It often isn’t an enormous revamp of the plan,” Barajas mentioned. “It’s making an attempt to get every thing organized in order that we will present very clear course after we meet with the remainder of the groups at 7:30.”
Mechanical engineer Steve Barajas dons a robe to guard towards contamination in preparation to enter the Excessive Bay Clear Room harboring NASA’s Europa Clipper area probe on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Instances)
9 a.m.
Earlier than any work on the spacecraft begins, Barajas and his colleagues must don the white protecting coveralls often called bunny fits. Barajas must repeat the process 3 times earlier than the day ends.
Collegial chatter abounds as a result of some individuals coming into the clear room for the primary time need assistance with the method.
Mechanical engineer Steve Barajas leans over to shut the leg of his clear room coveralls. Subsequent, the opening might be taped shut.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Instances)
“Each time we enter the clear room, now we have to first placed on the bunny go well with, which is a really ugly one-piece jumper,” Barajas mentioned. “Empty your pockets; no telephones or watches. Shoe covers go in your toes, then there are boots that go on high of these. When you have a beard; there’s a masks to put on for that. Then there’s a face masks, and a hood that’s like a cloth helmet goes over that. Then you definitely placed on the bunny go well with with out letting it contact the bottom. Then there’s tape on the entire separate components, becoming a member of the legs to the footwear, gloves to the sleeves, and so forth.”
The method have to be repeated after a employee leaves the clear room for lunch or a rest room break — “It’s one of many every day downsides of the job” — so veterans know, “you’re not in a position to hydrate as you’ll usually.”
Subsequent, there’s something that appears like a bathe stall, buts it’s dry air being blasted on the occupant, arduous sufficient to really feel like a windstorm.
On one wall of the clear room hold plaques commemorating missions that date again 63 years, to the Ranger 1 moon mission, when engineers labored on spacecraft in avenue garments. However this isn’t 1961, a time when earthlings weren’t involved about spreading their organic junk off the planet.
“Planetary safety has advanced,” Barajas mentioned of the strict work necessities he has to observe every single day. “Nobody needs to be the particular person accountable when extraterrestrial life is lastly discovered and it seems to be one thing we introduced there from Earth.”
Engineers and technicians work on the Europa Clipper, which is surrounded by non permanent scaffolding.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Instances)
9:30 a.m.
Contained in the clear room, engineers and technicians are ensuring all of the fittings on the thermal pump are sufficiently tight.
There is no such thing as a chatter, no small discuss. Everyone seems to be wanting intently on the work being finished, a degree of scrutiny that continues in the course of the testing course of. Barajas is there to make sure that members of the thermal staff conducting the take a look at have every thing they want and the work goes easily.
“Now we have detectors right here on the clear room ground that can learn whether or not something is seeping out. We do that with helium,” Barajas mentioned. It needs to be under a sure fee loss. “There’ll at all times be some seepage, however so long as it’s not an excessive amount of, we’re OK.”
A JPL worker inspects the Europa Clipper spacecraft throughout testing of its thermal pumping system.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Instances)
10:30 a.m.
There are two thresholds for achievement. One is a vacuum take a look at utilizing a wand spraying helium to see whether or not it is being sucked into the system. The opposite is the high-pressure take a look at wherein helium is pumped via the system to see if whether or not gasoline is leaking.
Any important leaks will interrupt the tight choreography of the spacecraft’s meeting and testing schedule, lower than a 12 months away from launch time.
“We’re bodily placing the spacecraft collectively. We’re the tip of the road,” Barajas mentioned, making an attempt to clarify the intense ambiance within the room. “It’s as much as us to confirm that the components now we have been despatched are working the best way they need to. People aren’t infallible. We’re at all times wanting over one another’s shoulder to ensure we’re doing the job proper.
“I feel that’s the place the stress comes from, proper? That we really feel the strain and the burden of constructing this car that has been the life’s work of some and years of labor for a lot of others.”
The ambiance is severe in the course of the probably hazardous thermal pump strain take a look at, apart from “Excessive Bay Bob,” a bunny suit-clad model within the Excessive Bay Clear Room.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Instances)
1 p.m.
It’s lunchtime. You would possibly assume that the strain of tight deadlines would trigger Barajas and others on the mission to push via to remain on schedule. Dangerous concept, Barajas mentioned.
“We at all times find time for lunch,” he mentioned. “What we don’t need is to have hungry individuals on the ground. Generally we cycle individuals out and in in order that the work can proceed. Different occasions we simply take a 45-minute break, so the oldsters can keep centered on the ground after we are having a protracted day like this.”
Kids look via a window into the clear room at JPL the place the Europa Clipper spacecraft is assembled.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Instances)
2 p.m.
Barajas steps out of the clear room to meet up with telephone calls and e mail.
“In my explicit function, the brunt of the day is numerous behind-the-scenes work,” Barajas mentioned. “To maintain issues shifting, waiting for the following job.”
There’s the occasional startling interruption of tour guides talking within the corridor outdoors his workplace as they lead teams via the Spacecraft Meeting Facility. The principle attraction is the window into the clear room, the place excursions can see the spacecraft itself.
“There’s a relentless stream of excursions in the course of the day. It’s like working in a fishbowl,” Barajas mentioned with fun.
3 p.m.
The workday involves the three p.m. change of shift. However Barajas isn’t knocking off; he’s gone again to the clear room as testing continues. Barajas must ensure that the second shift is ready to decide up the place the primary left off.
Engineers and technicians underneath a excessive achieve antenna work on the Europa Clipper.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Instances)
4 p.m.
The exams are finished and the groups decide that there have been no leaks. However there isn’t even the briefest of celebrations for this achievement.
“We’ve obtained a lot nonetheless to do. Interim steps don’t actually get a lot of a response from us,” Barajas mentioned.
Barajas and colleagues flip their focus to the following few days, when they are going to fill the system with Freon after which shut the spacecraft’s aluminum vault for good.
“That might be a milestone, not only for us, however for the entire mission,” he mentioned.
Which may even get a high-five.
