Co-op helps SpaceX’s Starlink satellites shoot for the stars
As a software engineer at SpaceX, Ruben Noroian left his mark on the company’s vast array of Starlink satellites that are expanding internet access to people across the globe.
The Big Dipper has some stiff competition in the night sky these days. Private space technology company SpaceX has created its own constellation, an interlinked array of 8,500 Starlink satellites that is quickly filling up Low Earth Orbit.
Just this week, the company launched another 28 satellites that will join the so-called megaconstellation designed to bring reliable high-speed internet access to dark zones for terrestrial internet coverage. It’s one of the most significant space launch missions in recent history, one that a Northeastern University student has left his fingerprint on.
For his first co-op, Ruben Noroian spent an intense 12 weeks working as a software engineer at SpaceX. For a computer engineering student, working on Starlink’s antenna software was a dream come true that pushed his skills into the stratosphere.
“There are some interesting challenges with how you accurately and reliably communicate with people in remote areas using these satellites,” says Noroian. “I was working on the configuration that enables reliable communication and then ensuring that that communication can take place throughout the entire satellite’s lifespan to provide internet to users on the ground.”
Noroian’s summer sojourn to SpaceX’s offices in Redmond, Washington, was his first industry experience as a computer engineer. However, he brought with him extensive experience from Northeastern, including PEAK Fellowship-awarded work in the Silicon Synapse Lab and research done in the Northeastern University Computer Architecture Research Laboratory.
“Going into Northeastern, I didn’t have any engineering background,” Noroian says. “Purely everything that I learned to get to SpaceX was from here [Northeastern].”
Once he arrived at SpaceX, Noroian quickly embraced the high expectations placed on him. He was treated like just another engineer at SpaceX. Questions were welcome, and for Noroian, the opportunity to learn from experts at the top of their game was invaluable.
“I was looking for that,” Noroian says. “Being around very smart people and molding into how you perceive yourself as an engineer based on what everyone’s doing is something that exists there and I like that a lot.”
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The experience also reinforced a skill Noroian had already learned at Northeastern that he feels is still under-discussed and undervalued: resiliency.
“Given a big project, knowing that there will be roadblocks along the way, things that get in your way, learning how to adapt and stay consistent and be a good learner is something that SpaceX was definitely an amazing experience in terms of teaching me that,” Noroian says. “You don’t ever really stop applying that.”
Although Starlink seems like a literal pie in the sky concept, its impact has already been felt on the ground. More than 6 million people now have internet access because of Starlink satellites, according to SpaceX. Knowing his work helped have a measurable impact on people’s lives has only reaffirmed for Noroian the kind of work he wants to do moving forward.
He’s energized by the challenges that still exist in fields like space technology, AI and robotics but wants to make sure he’s always bringing them down to earth.
“It was reinforcing and motivating understanding that what I was doing was important and good for people and contributing to the products that provide people with internet access who would otherwise not have it,” Noroian says. “Being a part of that meaningful mission, coming away from that, that’s something I want to do in the future no matter where I am. I want to make sure that I’m working on something that is beneficial to society.”
