Welcome To NASA: Summer Internships Across California

IRVINE, CA — Love science? Looking for a way to make your mark this summer? NASA is currently accepting applications for summer internships, according to the NASA Careers pages. But why be a NASA intern?

Kaitlyn Summey was selected to be an intern at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, in 2016. The Georgia University student never dreamed that she could be working for NASA at 19, and she acknowledged that it is because of the encouragement from family and friends that she applied to the program.

“I’ve never been as excited as I was when I got that phone call,” Summey said in a recent NASA interview on her experience.

In Orange County, an Irvine internship is available for students interested in the NASA Airborne Science Program.

"The purpose of the Student Airborne Research Program is to provide students with hands-on research experience in all aspects of a major scientific campaign, from detailed planning on how to achieve mission objectives to formal presentation of results and conclusions to peers and others," the website said. "Students will work in multi-disciplinary teams to study surface, atmospheric, and oceanographic processes."

What can you expect? Participants will fly on board the NASA C-23 Sherpa and assist in the operation of instruments to sample and measure atmospheric gases aboard the aircraft.

"They will also use data collected during the program from the NASA ER-2 to image land and water surfaces in multiple spectral bands," NASA said.

Plus, it looks great on your resume.

There are many other types of internships available to college students interested in reaching new frontiers.

"I still have trouble sleeping until my alarm goes off because I'm so excited to get to work," Summey said.

Did you go to Space Camp as a kid? This amazing young woman is still reaching for the stars, according to the NASA Internships Twitter feed.

NASA Summer Interns having some fun...

“Welcome to NASA” was an outreach video project created by interns at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

"It was based off of Flo Rida’s 'My House' to raise interest for NASA's Journey to Mars," a NASA spokesperson related over YouTube. "The lyrics and scenes in the video have been re-imagined in order to inform the public about the amazing work going on at NASA and the Johnson Space Center."

Here is what summer internships looked like in 2016:

For 2017, the options open for internships include seeking the best and brightest new minds in fields from design to biology, robotics to education.

Two-thousand seventeen open California internships have rapidly approaching deadlines. Browse them today:

• Irvine: 1 Opening:

NASA Student Airborne Research Program (SARP 2017): Along with airborne data collection, students will participate in taking measurements at field sites and in the lab. Each student will complete an individual research project from the data collected and will give a final oral presentation. If data collection, taking measurements and working in a lab are your thing, highly motivated advanced undergraduates who are rising seniors in the summer of 2017 were invited to apply.

• Pasadena: 2 Openings Including:

Mechanical Design and Testing: Work with the Mars 2020 mission team to developing a sample caching system for a Rover which will collect rock cores and place them into a cache which will be left behind on the surface of Mars for a follow-on mission.

Archeogeochemistry: Student will use various techniques in sample preparation, as well as light and electron microscopy, to locate and identify targets for in situ, spatially resolved stable isotopic analysis.

• Palmdale: 32 Openings Including:

NASA Office of Education: Robotics Intern: Student will support NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center's Office of Education programs using NASA STEM content to inspire and engage students and educators. Robotics workshops will be the focus of the summer, along with identifying needs, developing and implementing new curriculum, and improving existing programs using NASA content and resources.

NASA Office of Education: Educator Intern: Student will support NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center's Office of Education programs using NASA STEM content to inspire and engage students and educators. Student will become familiar with a technical project at NASA and develop an activity and lesson plan that helps students understand the project at a higher level.

• San Jose: 84 Openings Including:

Astrobee Robot Software Intern: Astrobee is a robot being built to fly autonomously inside the International Space Station, to assist ground controllers in monitoring the ISS and to serve as a robotic platform for microgravity research. Astrobee will launch to the ISS at the end of 2017. Potential projects for this summer include building maps for Astrobee from existing ISS data sets, improving Astrobee's simulation infrastructure, and more depending on student interests.

VIP: Fog/Cloud Water Biological Sampling from UAVs: A small group of students with backgrounds in engineering and bioscience will, with the guidance of senior researchers and engineers, design and test a sampling payload to be flown on small, low-altitude autonomous air vehicles. The goal is to capture fog and cloud droplets and test them for basic microbiological properties (cell count, ATP concentration, etc.).

For more information on how to apply for NASA internships, visit: https://intern.nasa.gov/ossi

Image: NASA