Nikki Jahn, SSTL

Nikki Jahn has been a spacecraft systems engineer at Surrey Satellites Technology Limited (SSTL) since 2012. Previously, Jahn earned a Bachelor of Science in Physics degree at the Imperial College of London in 2005, and worked at Airbus for four years. “When I graduated, I asked myself, what do you do with a physics degree? I was looking around who was hiring and where were the most interesting places to go. I thought about going into defense for a while, but then was offered a job at a satellite manufacturer. So, it was either working on satellites or procuring nuclear weapons. So, I made the decision to go into the satellite industry,” Jahn says.

She is one of a new breed of engineers who will be key to shaping the future of our industry long after the current crop of CEOs and CTOs have retired. Jahn believes a lot of governments have switched onto the fact that space-based applications, particularly in terms of Earth observation, haven’t been fully used to their potential, and that there is a lot more than can be done in terms of policy making. She hopes that, one day, we see one incredibly joined up system where every government has instant access to all of the information they need on pollution levels, cities, roads, etc. However, she says getting there will be a gradual process as governments would need to see the benefits and have this “big-picture” thinking.

After earning her degree, Jahn admits she was “genuinely surprised” by just how big the space industry is in the United Kingdom. “I was genuinely surprised that the United Kingdom had such a large space industry, and that so much was built in here, because it is so badly publicized, particularly 10 years ago when I was looking at a career path,” she says. “When I started, it seemed very old fashioned, as you had the aging population gap going on, so they were bringing in a lot of people. But, you had this strange situation where everyone was either 50 or 20 [years old]. It has changed dramatically over the last 10 years.”

In terms of what she sees as her greatest achievement so far, Jahn talks of her work on the Orbital Test Bed (OTB), a hosted payload mission for SSTL’s U.S. office. Of the two years she has been working at SSTL, Jahn has spent 18 months in this project working as the platform systems engineer; putting together all of the company’s “exciting new technologies.” It is the first mission of its kind to go from the U.S. office and it is due for launch in 2016. “We had a strong product offering for the U.S. market, but we were also bringing on board interesting payloads from U.S. providers,” she says.

Jahn describes the younger generation as “always on,” becoming ever more demanding when it comes to communications. Rapid change is now part of the modern world. “I think our generation has all grown up with rapid change. Technology has evolved dramatically since we were children. I had a computer in the house from 5 [years old] onwards. It gave you a very different view of the world and how things could change and adapted. We have been taught you can never be comfortable in your position because technology is constantly changing in a matter of hours, not years or decades anymore,” says Jahn.