Powtawche Valerino

Last updated
Powtawche Valerino
Powtawche Valerino October 2017 (cropped).jpg
Valerino in 2017
Nationality Mississippi Choctaw, American
Alma mater Rice University
Stanford University
Occupation Engineer
Employer NASA

Powtawche N. Valerino is an American mechanical engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She worked as a navigation engineer for the Cassini mission.

Contents

Early life and education

Valerino was born to a Mississippi Choctaw mother and African-American father. She grew up on the Mississippi Choctaw reservation and is an enrolled member of the tribe. [1] When she was ten, she moved with her family to New Orleans. A few years later she saw the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion on television and became interested in science. [2] Valerino learned cello at age twelve, and still plays in the Pasadena Community Orchestra. [1] [3] During high school, Valerino interned as a mechanical engineer as part of NASA's Summer High School Apprenticeship Research Program, where highly achieving students shadow NASA professionals. [4]

She obtained a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University, and received her master's degree and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering from Rice University. [5] During summers at graduate school, Valerino interned at Johnson Space Center in Houston and Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Mississippi, where she worked on the X-38 vehicle (International Space Station lifeboat) team. [6] Her dissertation, Optimizing Interplanetary Trajectories to Mars via Electrical Propulsion, was submitted to Rice in 2005. [7] She was the first Native American to earn a PhD in engineering at Rice University. [6]

Research and career

Cassini-Huygens lifted off with a Titan 4(01)B from Launch Complex 40. Cassini-Huygens lifted of with a Titan 4(01)B from Launch Complex 40.jpg
Cassini-Huygens lifted off with a Titan 4(01)B from Launch Complex 40.

Valerino joined the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mission Design and Navigation Section in 2005. [5] She first worked on the proposed Jupiter Icy Moon Orbiter mission, then transferred to the Cassini mission, where she was a navigator with the maneuver and trajectory team. [8] [9] The Cassini mission far outlived the predicted four-year lifetime, with engineers like Valerino pushing it to thirteen years. [10] Throughout the Cassini mission, Valerino shared the spacecraft status and findings with the public. [11]

Her most recent project was the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft, [12] which launched on August 12, 2018. [13] It became the first satellite to fly as close to the sun as Helios 2 did in 1976. [14] [15]

Valerino at the site of NASA's Space Launch System program. Powtawche Valerino 2019.jpg
Valerino at the site of NASA's Space Launch System program.

Public engagement

Valerino has worked to recruit and encourage the participation of under-represented groups in science. [16] This has included working with Soledad O'Brien to encourage black and Latina young women to pursue careers in STEM at the PowHERful Summit. [17] In 2016 she received the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Education Award for her outreach activities. [18] In 2017, Valerino joined 21st Century Fox in their promotion of the film Hidden Figures , which tells of the role of outstanding African-American mathematicians and scientists in the Apollo program. [19] [20] [21] [22]

Valerino is a fan of comic books. She has also discussed strong women in graphic novels on podcasts. [23]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spacecraft propulsion</span> Method used to accelerate spacecraft

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<i>Cassini–Huygens</i> NASA/ESA mission sent to study Saturn and its moons (1997–2017)

Cassini–Huygens, commonly called Cassini, was a space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites. The Flagship-class robotic spacecraft comprised both NASA's Cassini space probe and ESA's Huygens lander, which landed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Cassini was the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter its orbit, where it stayed from 2004 to 2017. The two craft took their names from the astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aerobraking</span> Spaceflight maneuver

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interplanetary Transport Network</span> Low-energy trajectories in the Solar System

The Interplanetary Transport Network (ITN) is a collection of gravitationally determined pathways through the Solar System that require very little energy for an object to follow. The ITN makes particular use of Lagrange points as locations where trajectories through space can be redirected using little or no energy. These points have the peculiar property of allowing objects to orbit around them, despite lacking an object to orbit. While it would use little energy, transport along the network would take a long time.

Timeline of <i>Cassini–Huygens</i>

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In astrodynamics, orbital station-keeping is keeping a spacecraft at a fixed distance from another spacecraft or celestial body. It requires a series of orbital maneuvers made with thruster burns to keep the active craft in the same orbit as its target. For many low Earth orbit satellites, the effects of non-Keplerian forces, i.e. the deviations of the gravitational force of the Earth from that of a homogeneous sphere, gravitational forces from Sun/Moon, solar radiation pressure and air drag, must be counteracted.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Low-energy transfer</span> Fuel-efficient orbital maneuver

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Kathleen Connor Howell is an American aerospace engineer known for her contributions to dynamical systems theory applied to spacecraft trajectory design which led to the use of halo orbit in multiple NASA space missions. She is currently the Hsu Lo Distinguished Professor at Purdue University in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics. In acknowledgment of her many achievements, Discover magazine recognized her in 2002 as one of the 50 most important women in science.

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References

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  5. 1 2 "CCD STEMinar series - Caltech Center for Diversity". diversitycenter.caltech.edu. Retrieved 2018-01-13.
  6. 1 2 "Powtawche (Williams) Valerino, PhD". The National GEM Consortium. 2014-10-02. Retrieved 2018-01-13.
  7. Neengay, Williams, Powtawche (2005). Optimization of interplanetary trajectories to Mars via electrical propulsion (Thesis). Rice University. Bibcode:2005PhDT........56W. hdl:1911/18840.{{cite thesis}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. "Saturn With a Side of Bacon". Cassini Legacy: 1997-2017. Retrieved 2018-01-13.
  9. Valerino, Powtawche N. (2014). "Updating the Reference Trajectory for the Cassini Solstice Mission". SpaceOps 2014 Conference. doi: 10.2514/6.2014-1880 . ISBN   978-1-62410-221-9.
  10. Ash, Summer (2017-09-21). "How a tiny space robot can change your life". Syfy. Retrieved 2018-01-13.
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  16. "CaSGC Supports Fresno State's Lyles College of Engineering Girls Summer Engineering Experience | California Space Grant Consortium". casgc.ucsd.edu. Retrieved 2018-01-13.
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