In the 20th century, most people would have considered being an astronaut the number one job related to space. Now, in the 21st century, opportunities to work in the space industry have broadened considerably!
Aotearoa1 New Zealand has its own space industry that is busy and growing all the time. A number of roles exist that are connected to space in some way, and very few of them involve astronauts. The space industry is involved with:
- what goes up to space – satellites and micro laboratories
- what we can see from space – remote sensing and greenhouse gases
- how to send things to space – rockets and remotely piloted aerospace planes
- how to keep things safe and working in space
- how to get things down from space – digital satellite2 data3 and spent rocket parts.
So how do you get a job in the space industry? Where do you start?
Education for space-related careers
Pathways into the space industry vary with each individual. For instance, Peter Beck (Rocket Lab) and Mark Rocket (Kea Aerospace) didn’t go to university but are now leading and innovating in their own space companies.
Many people who work in the aerospace industry think science, technology and mathematics are important subjects to study – even if they found them difficult at times. When Dr Beata Bukosa studied physics at school, she didn’t understand some of it and had to work hard. Her efforts paid off – she’s an atmospheric modeller with the MethaneSAT mission working with lead scientist Dr Sara Mikaloff-Fletcher. Sara, on the other hand, enjoyed writing and art more than science, but today, she uses ground and satellite technology to observe greenhouse gases4. Sometimes attitude and curiosity are just as important as good grades!
There are other pathways, too. Studying languages helps us think about the world in different ways. For instance, Dr Pauline Harris talks about what happens at the interface of science and mātauranga Māori with the work she does as an astrophysicist5, cosmologist6 and kairangahau7 Māori at the University of Wellington.
Jennifer Blackburne earned a tennis scholarship, which took her to university to study mechanical engineering8. Experience in coding with Scratch helped Juliet McLachlan understand the computational thinking that led to her work as a flight operations software engineer. Juliet also enjoyed art, design and music at school.
Attitudes and dispositions
People working in the space industry have identified attitudes and dispositions they find useful, including:
- being curious and asking questions about how and why things work
- being a self-starter and proactive
- being co-operative and collaborative
- having creativity to think outside the box
- being a logical thinker
- having persistence and resilience when things get tough
- enjoying building things by hand or on a computer
- enjoying attending clubs, networks and events about space.
Do you recognise any of these dispositions in yourself? They aren’t limited to what you do at school. They can apply to sports and hobbies too!
Space-related jobs
People working in space-related jobs might begin their careers anywhere, such as in teaching or photography or working with maps, and later move into a job related to space. Alternatively, they might start in an industry that already has some connections with space such as working with radar9 or software engineering and keep moving further into space-related roles.
The experts who appear in the video below are a small representation of Aotearoa New Zealand’s aerospace sector, but they’ve had a huge variety of jobs, hobbies and interests! Former and current jobs include:
- air traffic controller
- biochemist10
- biodiversity11 scientist
- communications technologist
- data analyst
- educational resource developer
- electrical engineer
- map maker
- mechanical engineer
- oceanographer12
- photographer
- researcher
- sailor
- satellite engineer
- software engineer
- technician
- television producer
- user interface designer
- videographer.
The New Zealand Space Agency is Aotearoa New Zealand’s lead government agency for space sector development. It notes that there are lots of other jobs beyond science, engineering and technology. The space industry also needs people with skills in communications, ethics and law. Most importantly, young people need to be ready to take on the challenge of doing jobs that don’t even exist at the moment!
Related content
Meet some other scientists whose work intersects with the space sector:
- Dr Allan McInnes is an electrical and electronics13 engineer who worked on the B-2 stealth bomber and the Mars exploration rovers.
- Dr Wolfgang Rack and Dr Adrian McDonald both use satellites in their icy fieldwork in Antarctica.
- Kelvin Barnsdale’s expertise14 in radio frequencies and electronics led to work on Space Shuttle15 missions and designing GPS16 systems.
- Warwick Holmes is an avionics systems engineer who helped to build, test and launch the Rosetta spacecraft.
- Avinash Rao spent 6 years at Rocket Lab and became CEO at Argo Navis Aerospace.
Our collection Working in the space curates resources highlighting the diversity of roles that exist in New Zealand's growing place in space – whether it is a space-related job or deepening the understand of tātai arorangi17.
Activity ideas
Can I work in the space industry? fosters blue-sky thinking about how and where tamariki18 and rangatahi19 might see themselves in the space industry.
Get a taste of some types of thinking that happens in the space sector:
- Creating a space treaty – for writers, thinkers and future policy developers
- Making digital space debris clean-up games – for software engineers and computer scientists
- Interpreting observations from satellite images – for people interested in looking after te taiao20
- Validating remote sensing observations – for modellers and computer scientists
Get a taste of engineering, building things and problem solving:
Useful links
Explore the websites for these Aotearoa New Zealand space organisations/businesses:
Acknowledgement
This resource has been produced with funding from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the support of the New Zealand Space Agency.
- Aotearoa: The Māori name for New Zealand, meaning Land of the Long White Cloud.
- satellite: Any object that orbits around another object.
- data: The unprocessed information we analyse to gain knowledge.
- greenhouse gases: A natural or manmade gas that traps heat in the Earth's atmosphere and contributes to the greenhouse effect. The main greenhouse gases are water vapour, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), ozone and industrial gases such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). These gases in the Earth's atmosphere trap warmth from the Sun and make life possible. An overabundance of greenhouse gases leads to a rise in global temperatures – known as the greenhouse effect.
- astrophysicist: An astronomer who studies the physics of the universe and things in it.
- cosmologist: A scientist who studies the origins and structure of the universe.
- kairangahau: Researcher.
- mechanical engineering: A branch of engineering that deals with the design, construction and operation of machinery.
- radar: A method of detecting distant objects and determining their position, speed, or other characteristics by using very high frequency radio waves reflected from the objects’ surfaces.
- biochemist: A scientist who works in the field of how chemical processes occur in living things.
- biodiversity: The range of species found in a particular region. The more species that exist (the higher the biodiversity), the more likely it is that an ecosystem will survive episodes of change.
- oceanographer: Someone who studies the properties and processes of the ocean.
- electronics: 1. The study of the behaviour and control of electrons. This field has expanded enormously with the discovery of semiconductors. 2. The generic term for hardware used to build electrical components.
- expertise: Having excellent knowledge or skills in a particular area.
- space shuttle: A reusable NASA spacecraft that carries astronauts, space station material and satellites into a low orbit around Earth.
- GPS: Global positioning system. Uses satellites, computers and receivers to determine the exact position of a receiver on Earth by calculating the time difference for signals from different satellites to reach the receiver.
- tātai arorangi: Astronomy, knowledge of celestial bodies.
- tamariki: Children.
- rangatahi: Refers to the younger generation, youth.
- taiao: The natural world, Earth.
