When I started working at Custom Microwave, I had no idea what it takes to produce a product that will be used in space. In this environment, one must learn pretty quickly to triple check all of your work  before you complete your part of the job. But it doesn’t end there – a typical job can take six to twelve months or more to work its way through the plant, from sales, to engineering, into fabrication, and finally test. And all along the process, multidisciplinary teams are involved to ensure that the integrity of the job is of the highest quality. This often means that an employee can expect to be involved on a program throughout the entire process, even if the “touch time” is relatively short.

We work together throughout the process. We triple check our own work, and double check each other. We have each other’s backs. Even after delivery, the prime contractors of the spacecraft can have questions that trickle down to the smallest detail of our work.

Months or years later comes the launch, usually for commercial satellites, delivering data and communications services around the world.

And sometimes, many years later, we learn that a job that we worked on has finally reached its ultimate destination, orbiting Mars, or even Jupiter! It’s truly a wonderful feeling, seeing imagery from another planet, knowing that I was part of the team that enabled it to happen.

Jonathan Scupin - Principal RF Engineer