A Question About Time and Priorities
Rockets can be calculated and orbits can be plotted. The harder question is how a young engineer learns to judge which task matters when the workload never stops growing? Malvika Bhardwaj, a student at Rice University, put that question directly to her mentor, Daniel Cohen, a Guidance, Navigation and Control engineer at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. [1] His answer was not a schedule or a priority list: “You decide what’s important,” he said. [1] Bhardwaj studies computational and applied mathematics. Her placement sits inside a team whose entire job is to answer where a spacecraft is and how it moves once it gets there.
The structure that carries students across that gap has a name: NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement. Through it, interns contribute to agency projects while learning from NASA mentors and gaining technical skills and hands-on experience for a future career in space exploration. The arrangement gives students a place to build technical skills and hands-on experience before they take on a mission of their own.
Bhardwaj’s own work shows how quickly a student moves from observer to contributor. She is developing tools to analyze thruster firings on the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, the craft intended to bring the International Space Station down safely at the end of its operational life. She also runs computer simulations to test the vehicle’s control system and to identify the conditions under which it could fail.
The Mentor Who Was Once the Intern
The person now doing the mentoring is not a new hire. He sat in the same chair as an intern himself. Cohen, a Rice University alumnus with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, began his NASA career as a flight operations intern in 2020. He then held internships in docking dynamics, propulsion systems, and Guidance, Navigation and Control analysis before joining Johnson as a full-time engineer in August 2024.
Cohen’s current work includes developing simulations and models for studies of the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, analyzing its control algorithms and Guidance, Navigation and Control performance, and evaluating SpaceX’s design at multiple life-cycle reviews. He also analyzes settings for the Orion spacecraft’s docking camera, which provides positioning measurements that can inform navigation during future Artemis rendezvous activities. Every one of those tasks is a live problem, not a textbook exercise.
He does not treat teaching as a residue left over after the real work. He sets aside a couple of hours each week to teach interns topics such as orbital mechanics and control systems. That is a standing appointment carved out of a schedule that also carries design reviews and camera calibration for the Orion docking camera.
The effect on Bhardwaj is concrete. Daniel made an effort to introduce her to the team and include her in conversations and meetings, she said. “I’ve learned about the culture of community and support at Johnson and NASA as a whole,” she said. “I saw how team members step up to help one another and keep the whole unit moving forward.” Her view of the field widened in a direction she did not expect. Working alongside interns in outreach, social media, and digital design showed her that the agency is not one narrow corridor of engineers. “No matter what interests you, there’s likely a role for you here,” she said. That is a career map drawn by someone still early in her own career.
A First Tool, Built From Scratch
The milestone that closes this account is not a mission event. It is a first finished product. Bhardwaj completed her first project — a set of analysis tools she built from scratch — and describes working through the debugging process and seeing a finished, functioning product as especially rewarding.
Underneath that milestone sits a lesson about how problems actually get solved. Bhardwaj believes her internship has shown her that problem-solving is rarely an individual effort. Team members bring different perspectives and need to understand how their work connects to a larger project. Her mentor’s advice became a working principle: how she spends her time and energy reflects what she values.
Her guidance to students who want a NASA internship is to apply even when they do not feel ready. “You’re probably never going to feel 100% ready, but so much of the learning happens on the job,” she said. [1] “Trust in your ability to navigate new environments.”
