Space Week: 2nd Year Science students talk with an Irish engineer at the European Space Agency

“On the 3rd of October, we were very lucky that our class (2X) had science at the time she was free to call us (even though we had some technical difficulties) we were all very excited. She was a very kind lady and answered all our questions which was great, the phone call lasted 15-20 minutes. Aisling is a Structures Engineer at the European Space Agency. She is from Athlone in West Meath and she went to study aeronautical science in Limerick. She said that when she was in sixth year that her guidance counsellor told her that she might as well work in a bank because not many women do engineering, but Structures Engineer at the European Space Agency. She is from Athlone in West Meath and she went to study aeronautical science in Limerick. She said that when she was in sixth year that her guidance counsellor told her that she might as well work in a bank because not many women do engineering, but she was motivated and kept going which I personally think is very impressive! She spends most of her time working in Europe places such as: Germany, Spain, France and England to name a few, she also gets to travel to Japan quite often.” Mia Quirke 

“Aisling at the moment is working on the Earthcare mission. The aim of the mission is to send a satelite into space to gather information about the Earth and how clouds affect the weather. The satelite will mainly be made up of Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) antenna, which is 2.5 m across. The cloud profiling radar will monitor how the clouds affect our weather. Aisling also talked about how she believed we are not the only people in space and it would be silly to think otherwise.
All in all it was very interesting listening to what Aisling had to say and how she ended up working for the ESA” Senan Delargy

“Today some of the students in 6th and 2nd year had the amazing opportunity to talk to one of the ESA’s structural engineers Aisling Shannon. Aisling started studying Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Limerick, after her guidance counsellor told her that girls don’t study engineering and instead should study banking. But she thought nobody could tell her what to do and did it anyway. Aisling now works with the European Space Agency (ESA) and is currently living in the Netherlands. The current project Aisling is working on is called EarthCARE a satellite that will try to collect research from clouds to see how they impact weather. Aisling has travelled to many countries including England, Japan, France, Germany and many more.
We would like to thank Aisling for her time and wish her luck in future projects” Dragos Cazan