Aisling Shannon, Structures Engineer with the European Space Agency, skyped 5th and 6th class for Space Week!!

​On Tuesday 1st October, Aisling Shannon, a Structures Engineer at the European Space Agency skyped the boys and girls in 5th and 6th class. Aisling is originally from Athlone, and studied Aeronautical Engineering in the University of Limerick. Aisling now works with the European Space Agency. Her role at ESA is to ensure that the spacecraft gets to where it needs to go without breaking! The launch of a spacecraft is very tough from a mechanical perspective, lots of shaking and noise and some loud bangs! These shocks and vibrations are the main drivers for the mechanical design of the spacecraft. It is Aisling’s responsibility to ensure that every part of the spacecraft is going to be able to survive the launch. A lot of analyses are performed to confirm this before we ever build anything.
 
Aisling told us about the mission she is currently working on, it is called ‘Earth Care’. The space craft is called ‘Earth Care’ and its mission is to observe Earth. It is a really important mission because it is gathering a lot of data about Climate Change. It gathers data about soil changes, cloud changes, changes with trees and changes with the ocean, along with lots of other data. Aisling told us that this data is then made available for free for anyone to analyse, particularly scientists who are studying changes in our climate.
 
We learned so much from Aisling about what it is like to work with the European Space Agency. She had some very encouraging words for the boys and girls; she said “Just go for it! It’s a really fun job and my favourite part is testing the spacecrafts, I am always nervous but we always hope for the best!”
 
Thank you Aisling for a brilliant morning!