Faye Cashman: Spacecraft Engineer

Faye Cashman is a Systems Engineer at Astrium in Portsmouth. In this STEMNET video, Faye describes her work with all sorts of spacecraft systems such as communication satellites and the Mars Rover. She is currently working on a new telescope which will, in time, replace the Hubble telescope and uses infrared to see through the dust caused by planetary nebula and is designed to look back to the Big Bang.

In the video, Faye describes her work and explains reasons for using components, clean working environments and the process of creating a rocket. She also talks about what she enjoys about her work, the route she took to get there and the importance of studying STEM subjects.

Faye brought 'Bridget', a prototype model of a Mars rover, to a local school to work with a group of Year 9 students. The video shows Faye helping them to design and test their own rover using engineering skills which relate directly to those used by Faye and her colleagues in their work.

"It's a good thing when people like myself go into schools because they see someone real, someone not very old...who has actually been through what they are going through; and sometimes they can relate better to younger people and it's easier than just reading it in a textbook. That interaction is why it's so important to get people in industry to go into schools".

"One of the ultimate goals of today is to get kids to think 'Yes this is a really good career choice - I would be quite interested in doing this in my future'. Hopefully we've got a few more space scientists coming up for the future".

• URL: http://stem.org.uk/rx3vo