LASP Space Technology Building
This week was my last week at LASP. Some of it was spent working with the MAVEN operations team. Monday and Tuesday were the final days of being able to contact MAVEN, and anything near Mars for that matter, with Martian conjunction officially starting at around 3pm local time on Tuesday. Most of that time was used to make sure that everything for conjunction was properly uplinked to the spacecraft, and that nothing irregular was happening or going to happen in the time that it would be out of contact with Earth.
Data for what I think is a Jovian L Burst
After conjunction started, there was not much left to do for MAVEN, so I went back to my study of Jupiter’s radio emissions. On Wednesday and Thursday I spent most of my time analyzing the data from last week’s observations to try to figure out what signals the telescope was picking up, if any. I cross referenced the data I obtained with data from NASA, and I believe that what I had picked up was indeed Jupiter.
Fran, Parker and me just before I left
I spent Friday morning cleaning up my desks in the LSTB and the SPSC, and I was pretty surprised by how many sticky notes I had accrued over the month and a half I was there. I then went to lunch with my bosses, Dale and Fran, and my coworkers, Parker and Colin. After lunch I went back to the SPSC to finish packing up and attend a presentation Parker was giving on his trip to Argentina to observe the occultation of MU69, the Kuiper Belt Object that New Horizons will pass at the end of this year.
LASP Space Science Research Facility
It was bittersweet to leave LASP. On one hand, I was excited to get home and see my family, but I also didn’t want to leave because I had grown to love working there. In the end, I had to say goodbye, and so ended an incredible chapter in my life. It was an amazing experience, and I am so grateful to have been given this opportunity.
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