Mechanical Test Engineer, Northrop Grumman

>> My name is Alysa Campos [phonetic], and I'm a mechanical test engineer. So a mechanical test engineer helps troubleshoot hardware in the build process when we come across problems or there's a design update. It's up to me to kind of help get that hardware back on track and pull in the necessary disciplines to meet our schedule needs. So get in and we have a quick status meeting on where we left off with our activities beforehand, check all the emails because there's never a shortage of emails, and then figure out what your activities are for the day. So what things you're going to install, what tests you're going to run, and what issues you still have to go through. So being a mechanical test engineer, my role would be supporting hardware installation. So when people hear tests, they think electrical; they think environmental testing. For me, it's installing hardware, making sure things are routed correctly. And we're very dependent on other areas where we get our hardware. So when we're expecting to get something and we don't get it on time, now we have to think, now we have to shift, what else can we do, what work can pull in. And we kind of work around that. So it's all been and satellite-based. So as an intern, I supported the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be the next one, Hubble's replacement. And then after that, I'm working on some other communication satellites.