Deep Dive: What I Did

Introduction

At Firefly I was challenged to do as much as I possibly could and I am proud to have learned a ton. Working as a manufacturing engineer I learned how to improve designs from an engineering standpoint, as well as from actually being hands on the floor. Most days started with the first ~8 hours doing engineering work, writing work instructions, adapting parts, and firefighting upstairs. Then, for the next 2-6 hours I would be on the floor working with technicians on my parts (or whatever needed assistance that day!) hands on to learn from the people actually doing the work. Because I was the only intern for the department in the sprint I got to work on all the major projects Firefly has. My projects can be split up into spacecraft, clipse, and Alpha process improvement.

All images were either approved for release or are directly embedded from Firefly's public Flickr.

Spacecraft: Blue Ghost Mission 2 & 3, Elytra Mission 3

The spacecraft team is where I was able to author the most of my work instructions and interface heaviest with the design team. Spacecraft bridged the gap between the manufacturing/production of Alpha and the dev work on Eclipse. Each spacecraft has a different mission but the overall same philosopophy. One of the highlights of being heavily involved on the production floor was that I was able to improve my work instructions after working with technicians on the floor and actually doing layups. Building spacecraft required a lot more precision than I was used to dealing with. One thing this really taught me was to question every engineering choice, the worst that could happen is that I learn

One of the highlights of my time on the spacecraft team was getting to see one of the parts I was working on in action. I was directly involved with the DPAF separation mechanism for Blue Ghost Mission 2, which is the part that holds the lander to the spacecraft module and then separates it once in orbit. Getting to see the unit in action on the qualification unit and take those lessons into the flight unit manufacturing was a very unique experience for such a critical part. Above you can see the combined unit, and below is the separated unit post test. Firefly posted a really neat video of the test on their socials, which you can see here: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn9XoQ8r3jv/

Alpha

Alpha process improvement was one of the most rewarding parts of my time at Firefly because as an intern, I was directly able to help improve the work instruction writing process for all of the ACME engineers. I was able to lead this cross-functional project with multiple other departments including propulsion and avionics. The main goal of this project was to help with the complete and sustainable transition to digital work instructions. In this role I interfaced with the ERP team as well as many other ME's to ensure the process we were defining was actually usable by the engineers. As a little side project here I made a few tools to implement during my own work available to the whole team. I was able to document this project in an effective way and pass it down to others to continue improving after I left.

I also got to work on a bunch of hands on improvements on the manufacturing floor for Alpha. If there were quick 3D printed tools that we're needed, I was able to innovate them quickly and get them into the right hands. If I noticed an inconvienience while working with some of the technicians, I would make it a project to improve that process whether it be a carrying cart, or safety issue. I really enjoyed being able to work on these innovative side-project's, it was really rewarding and a nice break from the more intense parts of the internship.

Lastly, I got to see the Alpha Flight VII launch from Vandenberg CA! It was really cool as this was my first time seeing a rocket launch! It was also a huge morale boost mid-internship and a show of where the projects I was working on were headed!

Eclipse

Eclipse was the program that originally drew me into Firefly as its advanced R&D is what I want to work towards in my career. This program is where I learned the most about composite manufacturing and got to apply my experience in manufacturing towards designing a robust test coupon combining all of the different areas of composites that I had learned about in my internship. This was a really awesome capstone project for me, and I was really proud to see the final coupon finish manufacturing right at the end of my internship.

Oh yeah - I also got to go inside the qual tank before it got sent out to testing - that was super fun!

Conclusion

I learned a ton in my time at Firefly. The team there enabled my passion for aerospace engineering and was supportive in teaching me anything I could ask about while still challenging me with new projects. Most importantly, they treated me like a real engineer from day one, no excuses.