Tracy Drain

"We're going to a place that's super cool and is a juicy, juicy science target"

"It's in a place that is really hard to study because Jupiter, my favorite planet, has a massive radiation field around it. Europa is orbiting inside that radiation field, so there are some pretty significant technical challenges with even conceiving a mission that can study a moon there."

"Like, how you get there, how you deal with the radiation, how you power a spacecraft so far from the Sun. This talk will give people a peek into some of the interesting things that have happened along the way and hopefully plant a little seed of excitement that they can nurture over the next five years to get ready for all the science data that this mission is planning to send back."

"The first time I remember being fascinated by space was when I read about how the solar system formed. The fact that it was formed from a giant cloud of gas and dust spewed out by supernovas and it all came together under gravity and made the Sun and all the planets – I thought it was bananas that scientists could figure all that out based on what they can see today. I remember thinking, “That’s really cool that we can know that about space.”"

"The things I do on a day-to-day basis change over the course of the life cycle of a mission. Early on, you’re involved in the requirements and rules the design has to follow so you can meet your mission goals. So you work with people at all the different levels to develop the requirements and make sure all those rules are written properly. Then systems engineers are involved with verifying those requirements and developing tests and sitting in on the tests."