{"id":1004,"date":"2021-01-04T09:00:23","date_gmt":"2021-01-04T09:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/?p=1004"},"modified":"2021-02-26T11:21:26","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T11:21:26","slug":"richard-baughen-instrument-engineer-space-department-of-physics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/2021\/01\/04\/richard-baughen-instrument-engineer-space-department-of-physics\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard\u00a0Baughen, Instrument Engineer\u00a0–\u00a0Space, Department of Physics\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h3>\n

\u201cThe instrument was shipped off to the Netherlands and set up for us by colleagues at the European Space Agency. I was able to remotely log in to our instrument and control it from my living room…\u201d<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

I work as part of a team building a scientific instrument called a magnetometer that will be sent on a spacecraft to Jupiter and its moons in 2022.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When the pandemic\u00a0<\/span>started<\/span>, we found ourselves stuck at home alongside the rest of the country. After a couple of weeks tidying up documentation, we knew that to make real progress we had to get back into the lab. You cannot build a magnetometer in your kitchen\u2026<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>or can you?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With great help from the department, some of us were back in very limited capacity from early May and things could start to move.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, that led us to a new dilemma. Sending an instrument to Jupiter requires some bespoke testing which is only available in a limited number of facilities across Europe<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>travelling in May was not really on the cards<\/span>, so w<\/span>e had to follow the rest of the worl<\/span>d by\u00a0<\/span>test<\/span>ing<\/span>\u00a0remotely.\u00a0<\/span>The instrument was shipped off to the Netherlands and set<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>up for us by colleagues at the European Space Agency. I was able to remotely log<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>in to our instrument and control it from my living room<\/span>\u00a0–\u00a0<\/span>a rather surreal experience but one that worked surprisingly well.<\/span>\u00a0When the instrument returned three weeks later the test campaign had been very successful, but the challenges were not yet over.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Not\u00a0<\/span>all of<\/span>\u00a0the\u00a0instrument\u00a0had been built and with only limited numbers allowed back in the lab, certain manufacturing could still not continue. It left only one logical choice<\/span>: s<\/span>end the lab home. We packed up crates of equipment and shipped it off to various kitchens and living rooms across London where work could continue safely. It was a resounding\u00a0success\u00a0and all the parts are now back in the lab where final integration can begin.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wh<\/span>ile you cannot quite build a magnetometer in your\u00a0<\/span>kitche<\/span>n,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>we certainly gave it a go<\/span>\u00a0from home<\/span>!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe instrument was shipped off to the Netherlands and set up for us by colleagues at the European Space Agency. I was able to remotely log in to our instrument and control it from my living room…\u201d\u00a0 I work as part of a team building a scientific instrument called a magnetometer that will be sent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[294815],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-staff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1004"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1007,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions\/1007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}