In November 2023, NASA sent a new laser communication device to the International Space Station. The system, called the Integrated LCRD Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal (ILLUMA-T), improves data transmission between the space station and Earth.
Making it possible was Emily Maheras, a thermal engineer for NASA.
Temperatures in space, unfiltered by our atmosphere, can be incredibly cold when in shadow, or intolerably hot in direct line of the sun. Maheras’ job is to protect devices from these harsh conditions. In 2024, she won an Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal from NASA for her work developing active and passive cooling designs for ILLUMA-T.
“It had to stay in a range, from negative 20 to 50 degrees Celsius,” says Maheras, an employee of NASA contractor Vertex Aerospace. “For this application, we had a cooling loop, so it circulated fluid throughout the spacecraft and kept things from getting too hot or too cold.”
During Maheras’ senior year, she got an internship at NASA. An initial mechanical design assignment didn’t excite her, though, so she turned her attention to thermal engineering. “It feels like you’re working on a puzzle, keeping things within temperature ranges,” she says. “It clicked with my brain more.”
She stayed at NASA while earning her master’s degree through the Whiting School’s Engineering for Professionals programs.
“For this application, we had a cooling loop, so it circulated fluid throughout the spacecraft and kept things from getting too hot or too cold.”
— Emily Maheras
Learning how to spitball and problem-solve with a diverse group has served her well. She was the only thermal engineer on the ILLUMA-T assignment as it neared launch, she says, and had to work closely with mechanical engineers, structural engineers, and others.
Her new project, providing thermal protection for the Habitable Worlds Observatory, is already larger, with four thermal engineers on a team of about 100, and is expected to grow.
The space telescope they’re developing, set to launch in 2040 at the earliest, is larger than previous ones, possibly requiring entirely new cooling techniques. “In the past, some telescopes had a large sunshade,” she says. “We may consider going down that route, but the shade would be much larger, the size of a football field.”
— KAREN NITKIN
Illustration by Joel Kimmel