Meet Maria-Ruxandra Luca, Power Team Lead for YPSat !

Tell us a bit about yourself, what is your job at ESA?

My name is Maria-Ruxandra Luca , I am from Romania and I am a Young Graduate Trainee in the Power Management section of European Space Agency - ESA .

Tell us about YPSat: What made you join the project??

I joined YPSAT for the unique opportunity to send my work to space, to test my abilities in this "first-of-its-kind-in-ESA" project, to learn more about the power system architecture of a small scale project and to meet people.

What is your role in YPSat ? How is your experience with YPSat?

My role within YPSAT is as lead of the Power team. Since the beginning of the project I was working closely with the Systems engineering team to define the capabilities of our spacecraft, design the electrical interfaces and design hardware where it was needed. I have also offered support to other teams, such as the Wake-Up Subsystem or Telecommunications.

What has been the biggest challenge for you?

YPSAT began as a project to be done in our spare time, however it was sometimes difficult to manage my time between my day-to-day tasks and work for YPSAT . I think this was the biggest challenge.

What are you most proud of?

I'm very proud of the advances we made so far with the project and how much I have learned in this time. One future key moment for Power team will be when we do the first full functional test. Hopefully it will be a successful test.

What surprised you the most?

Just how much amount of work even a small project, like ours, requires. There are many things to test and verify, cross-check with other teams, lots of communication with people from outside of our team and much more.

Your best memory?

Best memory was the feeling after an important review of our work. I realized we did a good job and I was with friends at the same time.

Describe YPSat in 1 quote or word?

"Keep it simple, stupid." I think many people from the project will agree with me on this one. This quote has become YPSAT project mantra.

How do you feel about your work going to space?

I'm very excited about our project going to space. I will no longer work at ESA at the time of the launch of Ariane 6, but of course I will be watching with a lot of excitement the event.

What's next for you?

Starting with September 2023, a new chapter will start for me, still in the space domain. Nothing is defined yet, but I'm looking forward to work on projects as exciting as YPSat.