Tanager Testimonials: Insights from Dr. Emily Martin, Tanager’s Payload Systems Engineer

Dr. Mark Keremedjiev | May 29th, 2024

Howdy! Welcome to our fourth Tanager Testimonial where we highlight the diverse set of people and skills required to bring a Planet’s new hyperspectral space mission to life. Today we are sharing our interview with Dr. Emily Martin, a Payload Systems Engineer for the Tanager program. Emily has been working at Planet for 1 year now. Before coming to Planet, Emily was a 51 Pegasi b Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Santa Cruz specializing in instrumentation for planetary atmospheres. Emily has over 10 years of experience designing and building instruments for ground based observatories and now at Planet, she is working on her first instrument that will go to space!

What is your role at Planet? How do you contribute to the Tanager Mission?

I am a Payload Systems Engineer. A spacecraft like Tanager has a bus and a payload. The bus flies the spacecraft and communicates with Earth. The payload holds the instruments that drive the scientific purpose of the spacecraft. In the case of Tanager, the payload is made up of a telescope, imaging spectrometer, and electronics that together can be used to image methane plumes. As a Payload Systems Engineer, I help build, integrate, and test Tanager’s payload. My role requires a holistic understanding of the payload, its components, and how those components interact with each other. I design and track the performance requirements for each component and work to validate and verify those requirements. I help to physically build the payload, coordinate with the subsystem teams responsible for building and testing each component, and bring these teams together cross-functionally to create a working payload.

How has your background enabled you to succeed at Planet?

I am an astronomer by background. I earned a bachelor's degree in physics and a Ph.D. in astronomy. As an astronomer, I worked on instrumentation for ground based telescopes such as the W. M. Keck Observatory and I used those instruments to study the atmospheres of planets, exoplanets, and brown dwarfs. My background in spectroscopy is essential for understanding how Tanager’s payload functions. For example, an important aspect of my work recently involved taking optical measurements with our system to ensure that our optical performance requirements are met. A background in spectroscopy and calibrating spectrometers has helped me in this. However, a new and fun aspect of this job for me has been working in strict clean room environments as some of the previous clean rooms I have been in were… not. In Planet’s clean rooms, we wear bunny suits and work hard to keep our facilities as free of contamination from dust, moisture, and other random stuff floating in the air as much as possible.

How directly transferable are the skills you picked up building spectrometers for astrophysical purposes to building them for space?

So relevant! The technology is the same, but instead of designing entirely for academic scientists, we are designing for Carbon Mapper and future customers. Many of the same questions arise during Tanager’s payload design process: What are the customer’s needs? What technical capabilities exist to address these needs? How do we make this happen? 

Added challenges come from the fact that we are designing a system for space. If a component breaks, we can’t physically go fix the broken part like we could in a ground-based observatory. This aspect has been a learning experience for me. There’s a lot more epoxy involved in building a space instrument, to ensure the instrument can safely survive launch!

What about the Tanager program did you find appealing when deciding to come work for Planet?

I was instantly sold on the Tanager program because it is driven by such an important mission for addressing climate change. I want to do work that contributes to doing good in the world and I’ve become increasingly interested in our climate crisis as it has progressively worsened. Working at a public benefit corporation like Planet, on a mission that combines both spectroscopy and climate advocacy was a natural and obvious choice for me. The caliber of people working on the Tanager program is also inspiring—everyone is so smart, hardworking, and caring.

Can you share a hard problem you faced working on the Tanager Team and describe how you solved it?

During the payload build process, we sometimes work within very, very tight schedule constraints. When you’re running late for a flight, you can't call up the airport and say, “Hey, can you hold the plane for me for 10 minutes? Sorry, there was traffic.” The same thing is true with spacecraft launches! Seats on ride-share launch vehicles are booked months or years in advance and those rockets leave Earth whether your particular spacecraft is there or not. These tight timelines can create stress among teams. Fortunately, the Tanager program consists of a tight-knit group of people who are all well aligned on goals, who understand the steps necessary to achieve those goals, and who are each willing to step in if needed. I feel like the Planet community is really supportive in this way. If a certain group needs extra help to meet a tight deadline, other teams are quick to lend resources and step in to help make it happen. I really, really like the people that I work with. Having a team of people I trust and can rely upon helps to turn frustrating days into fun days.

For anyone interested in getting into the space business, are there any words of advice you would share?

I used to teach at a program called AstroTech, run out of UC Berkeley, which is a week-long summer course for undergraduate and early graduate students interested in learning about instrumentation. During the week, the class would build a tabletop spectrometer. In this class, we emphasized that there are SO many ways to be a successful instrumentalist. Instruments need experts in optics, mechanical engineering, electronics, software, science, people team management, and more. 

The same is true, but on an even larger scale, when it comes to space. Planet has teams of people that specialize in engineering, software, product, marketing, communications, legal, sales, and more! There are so many different ways to be involved. My advice is to lean into your skill sets and interests, and think critically about how they fit into roles at Planet.

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