mr_yip

Their standards can be quite harsh depending on the project. At NASA JPL, for things like embedded software they have some large manual of standards that developers will have to go through. For some of the newer projects like the Europa mission that I was working on, there really isn't much for software that won't be running on the spacecraft. JPL is making an effort to branch into newer technologies and move away from some of the archaic programming languages and standards - at least from what I could tell from my short time there and talking to other full time devs.

Some projects are difficult to accomplish depending on what it is. There is a running joke at the lab that it's never good enough for the scientists, but always just good enough for the engineers. I.e. scientists are always trying to fit in more instruments to a spacecraft but then the engineers are responsible for figuring out a way to to fit it into the spacecraft and make it work. I didn't realize how much work would go into adding just another simple instrument to a spacecraft would be until I participated(more like sat in on) in some of the designing process. Every bit of weight means the entire craft must be engineered to account for it - the total payload, weight distribution, calculating trajectory, power for the instruments, etc.

Source: I worked as an intern at NASA JPL last summer. I tried doing an AMA a while back but the mods quickly deleted the thread. I tried PMing proof to them in addition to what I had posted publicly on the thread, but I guess it got lost somewhere...

At JPL, there is a slack channel dedicated to KSP. Quite a few employees play the game in their free time!

From my time at JPL, I heard a lot of complaints from coworkers regarding budget cuts. It seemed like there is a lot that NASA wants to do but does not have the budget for.

There is a mission currently in the works to go to Europa, a moon of Jupiter. Launch is scheduled sometime in March of 2022. There are already talks about a followup mission to send a rover to the surface of Europa. I am quite excited for these missions and I think some great discoveries will be made there if successful. There is a good amount of hope among the scientists and engineers working on the mission that there are sources of life on Europa, but the environment there and around the moon is quite extreme so finding ways to explore the moon will prove to be one of the most difficult missions yet.

They absolutely do. NASA internships are a great way to get your foot in the door, but anyone can apply and I know plenty of people that have come from other companies like SpaceX, Microsoft, and even Nintendo.

Do You think that we will find life on Europa? If not, where would we send our next Probes/Rovers? It comes to me as a concern that if we do not find life on Europa, the average American would see the mission as a flop, even though NASA would still be collecting extremely valuable information about the Moon.

I think we will, maybe not on the first mission. The general sentiment among the engineers I was working with was that there is a great chance that life is there, but whether or not we will be able to find it is another thing entirely. The moon generates a ton of radiation at the core from gravitational forces on Europa coming from Jupiter. This heats the water in the center of the moon, but on the surface it turns to ice. The layer of ice could be anywhere from 2 mile to 70 miles thick. There are geysers/plumes of water that shoot out from underneath the ice and into space. The hope is that the spacecraft being developed now will fly through the plumes of water and run analysis on it. A second mission being proposed is to send a rover to the surface of the moon. However, the surface is constantly changing due to the volatile radiation and ice that is always breaking and reforming. This raises questions like, where do we aim our rover to land with a surface that is constantly changing? Where is the surface of ice the thinnest to so we may have a chance at drilling through the ice? How will we communicate with the rover through the ice? etc...

Do you think that not being able to find even microbial life on Europa might discourage future Presidents, and members of congress to continue to fund NASA, or any other space agency?

I don't think so. There are many important missions that NASA works on at any given time. It seems to me that NASA is already quite underfunded though.

If so, where do we take it from there? If not, what are your views as to how the general public will react?

I'm not really sure. There was a massive amount of interest in the Mars rover mission during the initial phases after launch. A satellite making flybys around one of Jupiter's moons may not strike as much interest, but who knows?

Also, because I forgot to ask, any future plans in place that you are allowed to discuss as to mission/s to either Pluto or Mercury? Any other Planets, Moons, or Asteroids?

I don't know of any specific missions, but there are developments at JPL of spacecraft that can retrieve samples from asteroids using AI software. It will latch itself to the asteroid, drill into the surface, and take a small amount of rock to run analysis on it. Also robots that can latch themselves to nearly any surface. They could be used to repair spacecraft, walk around asteroids, move payloads, etc. My first thought from watching a live demo of them was R2D2 - really cool stuff!