Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1181966
32 SMT007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2019 wafer fabrication before coming on board over 15 years ago. Our current team is com- prised of about 150 years of experience in different aspects, and that is a lot of expo- sure for me to learn from. And when I think about voices outside of the walls of Foresite, I think of people like Doug Pauls at Rockwell Collins, a former CSL engineer, and how he helped me learn about topics like SIR testing and confor- mal coatings. Another former CSL voice I learned from when I first entered the indus- try is Joe Russeau, the founder and presi- dent of Precision Analytical Labs. He was the chemist who ran the ion chromatog- raphy lab in 2000 when I started, and he taught me a lot about how to run the equip- ment, as well as which ionics are found in most assembly processes. These are a few of the many voices I have learned from within CSL/Foresite. And when I think about all of the presen- tations I have attended, the list of voices grows into the hundreds. Some that stick out are Dr. Polina Snugovsky at Celestica, Dale Lee at Plexus, Dr. Mike Bixenman at Kyzen, Dave Hillman at Rockwell Collins, and the list continues. The work and voices of the past like Kilby and Noyce echoed to the major corporations of the 1960s and their working engineer groups, and those still resonate today with the voices I have heard, starting in the 2000s. I work with a lot of contemporaries with voices that will continue to be heard for many decades based on the work they are doing today. It is a great time to be in the electronics industry because we learn from those that came before us, and based on that, future generations will have the chance to listen to current voices for years and years. SMT007 Eric Camden is a lead investigator at Foresite Inc. To read past columns or contact Camden, click here. Virgin Orbit Wants to Send Tiny Spacecraft to Mars in 2022 Virgin Orbit, the satellite-focused spinoff of space tour- ism company Virgin Galactic, announced plans to launch three missions to Mars. The company has inked a part- nership with Polish satellite company SatRevolution and groups from Polish universities to send three small robotic spacecraft to Mars for science investigations. The mis- sions would be launched by Virgin Orbit's flagship Laun- cherOne rocket and could start as early as 2022. If it succeeds, Virgin Orbit will be the first commercial company to travel to the Red Planet. It will also mark an unexpected entrance into deep spaceflight for a com- pany whose plans focus on air launches, which have always been considered unsuitable for traveling beyond low Earth orbit. Virgin Orbit has yet to actually fly LauncherOne (it expects to do so later this year), but the plan is for a Boeing 747 called Cosmic Girl to carry the rocket to a high altitude and then release it. The rocket would fire its engines in midair and speed off into space. Air launches require less fuel and shielding than traditional rocket launches, and they can take place virtually anywhere since they're not restricted by a launch site or weather. But the airplanes struggle to take off with large rockets and large payloads. Going into deep space with one of these air-launch systems "is a pretty new idea," says Glenn Lightsey, an aerospace engineer at Georgia Tech. (Source: MIT Technology Review)