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Inside the UK space race: behind the scenes at Nammo Space · Project Podcast

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And on the desk is a red button. A big red button.
0:04
Yeah, a big red button. It does exactly what you expect.
0:06
Emergency stop. Normal abort So.
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Yeah. So you you hit that and it
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basically shuts the engine down, stops it from from from.
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Falling. I really want to hit that button
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away. You can.
0:17
You can hit it now. It's not going to do anything if
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you hit it now. Can I?
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Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's quite satisfying.
0:32
Welcome to the APM podcast. APM is the chartered body for
0:36
the project profession. My name is Emma DaVita and I'm
0:39
the editor of Project APM's quarterly journal and your host
0:43
this podcast. I travelled to Westcott in
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Buckinghamshire to meet the team at Namo Space who welcome
0:49
propulsion systems to the space, rocket engines and thrusters.
0:53
They're cutting edge products are used on International Space
0:56
programmes, whether they're satellites or missions to the
0:59
Moon or Mars. The business is growing rapidly
1:02
with around 100 people and 12 project professionals.
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The opportunity for growth in the space industry is now clear
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and present, Namos Space vice president Rob Selby confidently
1:13
told me. But Namos UK has been around in
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one form or another for a very long time.
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It celebrates its 80th birthday in 2026 and the Saito visit is a
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former World War 2 airfield that after the war became the UK
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Centre for Rocket Science for the Ministry of Defence.
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When I visited the site on the drizzly July day, the grounds
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were eerily quiet and sparsely dotted with old government
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buildings, new offices, stacked shipping containers used for
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storage and enough blown up concrete monolith blocks to give
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the place a post apocalyptic flavour.
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Open the door to Namo's offices, however, and you quickly soak up
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a feeling of quiet energy and total dedication.
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It's here I meet Rob Selby, Namo's energetic Vice President
1:59
for Space, who overseas the work done here, and I began by asking
2:02
him how he ended up working in space.
2:05
Well, not literally. I started in the aerospace
2:11
industry designing flight control systems for aircraft by
2:16
civil and military. When I started my journey as an
2:20
engineer, I was really interested in just finding
2:24
difficult roblems to solve, and that's really kind of lights my
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fire. So complexity.
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Yeah, so from a kid I used to take every toy I had a part and
2:34
try and make it better. Sometimes I work people.
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Sometimes it works, sometimes I have bits leftover and it never
2:39
worked again. But that early learning ground
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caused me to get into the position where I wanted to
2:44
understand problems very well, understand how to fix some of
2:47
the most difficult issues. And what better place to do that
2:50
in the space industry where you are solving some of the most
2:53
challenging problems both technically and dealing with the
2:57
environment of space as well is a is a substantial challenge
3:00
because you can't go and fix anything.
3:02
So it's all about getting it right on the ground first time
3:04
and doing that in the most effective way.
3:06
Do you enjoy that kind of stress?
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Strangely, I do, yes. I've always been someone who's
3:12
lived in quite a high stress environment.
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I'd like to create that pressure on myself to come up with
3:16
answers and to drive a team to do that.
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So it's always been the same. It's just something that's that
3:21
kind of motivates me, him. Is is that so you?
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It sounds so you like that sense of adrenaline and urgency in a
3:27
project, but how do you marry that with something that
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inevitably is quite long term? It's a really good question.
3:37
I would say that with every product we produce, there is
3:42
incremental changes that is necessary to achieve the end
3:46
goal. So a lot of that creating that,
3:48
that pressure that to drive us to achieve the, the success is
3:53
really breaking a problem down into the smaller pieces and
3:56
driving each one of those different elements.
3:58
Something that we do here a lot in Mauk because some of our
4:01
projects are ten, 11-12 years longing in in gestation.
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But you've got to break it down. You've got to, you've got to
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find out the key pieces that you need to understand and resolve
4:12
today that allows you to learn the lessons to go and design
4:16
that new rocket engine that you need to design to go and meet a
4:18
mission requirement. And for me, that's a huge part
4:21
of how you do the project management approach.
4:24
Conventionally, this business has been a waterfall management
4:27
type of company, a project management company, and that
4:30
worked quite well. But we're migrating a lot more
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to using more agile systems in our project management and
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that's going to increase a lot of that is down to wanting to do
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much more rapid development cycles.
4:41
So. Rapid testing.
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Rapid testing, rapid development and this is part of where the
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face of the space industry is changing.
4:49
Yes. How many more?
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It's been brought around a little bit by the successor
4:53
companies such as SpaceX, which show how you can develop faster,
4:57
quicker and kind of develop faster.
5:00
Make it break it. Well, yes and no.
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I think what you see is if you look at the top level in terms
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of how the money is spent, a lot of the development programmes,
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when they take a long time, can spend a lot of time doing
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analytical, theoretical assessment to try and get to the
5:20
right answer. And in the space industry,
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perfection has been key. In fact, on our door, in our
5:26
clean room, we have a sign on it that says failure in space is
5:29
not an option. The truth is you can't fail once
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you're in space. But up until that point through
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the development, the quicker you can learn from your mistakes and
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move forward, the quicker your development cycle.
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Is that the direction of travel then to have more kind of an
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actual approach in your work in the projects here?
5:49
Absolutely. I think the space industry is
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becoming increasingly commercial, whereas before there
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was a lot of looking at the origins of the universe and that
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is still very much part of the whole space brief.
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The use of space data throughout the world in terms of everyone
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uses satellite data throughout their everyday life.
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All of the time from using your mobile phone to connecting to
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the Internet, to using your GPS system in your car to get you
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probably to the the offices here.
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All of that is driven from access to that space data and
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that infrastructure that's already been built out.
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What you start to realise is in order for the connectivity of
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the human race to be increased and to provide more of that
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connection around the world to developing countries as well,
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that need for greater amounts of that build out of the space
6:40
infrastructure is necessary. That's putting a lot of pressure
6:44
on the space industry to become able to develop faster, go to
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higher volumes. So we're seeing a lot of
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constellations or large quantities of satellites in the
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the design for manufacture. That's applying a different
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level of pressure on the development cycle, which is
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causing us to want to move faster and quicker.
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That means we need to do a lot more design, developed, test,
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fail, learn and reiterate on that cycle again and again.
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And that's something that we're trying to do a lot more inside
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the nano space organisation because it really helps to give
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our engineers the kind of data they need to actually make good
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decisions. So moving to an agile approach
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is you end up blending and what we've seen and it's working
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quite well is a hybrid approach where you're using that top
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level waterfall planning approach, but then you're
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building in sprints and developments a short development
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activities that allow you to to the next miles stay.
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And a lot of what we're doing here is driving towards that.
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I think one of the enabling factors to being able to be
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better at doing that is making sure that infrastructure is
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available to do the testing and the activities.
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And you'll see as you go around on a tour of the Namo UK site,
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we've invested heavily in building test facilities close
8:02
to our doorstep where we make the parts that gives us that
8:05
very rapid iteration loop. I think if we were looking at a
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test facility service that was spread around Europe or the
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world to go and do these developments, you would see
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substantially longer lead times to get to test, to get to the
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data to allow you to iterate the designs that you see.
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So for us, investing in that test infrastructure is a
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critical element of being able to move faster, quicker and with
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more confidence that the developments that we're doing
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and the product we're maturing to market are robust and
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reliable. So it's sort of like a period of
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change. We're also quite exciting I
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guess. Absolutely.
8:40
Yeah, absolutely. We've seen I joined the Namo UK
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business back in 2013 and at that point we actually went
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through a consolidation phase where we reduced the site down
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to 18 people. 18 How big is it now?
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It's currently and it's just grown to and we're almost at 100
8:58
people in the UK now. So it's been quite a substantial
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growth period for us. We've seen investment in new
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buildings, in new test infrastructure that's allowed us
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to grow the skills or resources that we need in the business
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substantially from where we were.
9:12
What's it like actually working here and being in this industry?
9:15
You're obviously very excited about the whole thing, but.
9:19
So I think the single biggest moment that gets me every time
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and it's so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and like
9:27
dealing with problems and whether you're rocket
9:29
engineering or other types of engineering, you're dealing with
9:32
day-to-day problems that 'cause you focus on that and you take
9:36
yourself away from the big picture.
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But every time I look at the moon, I realise that there is a
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piece of hardware that this factory is built that I've been
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involved with, that I've touched, that is sat on the
9:50
surface of the moon. And at that moment it starts to
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bring it all home as to what I really do.
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And there's not many things, not many jobs you can do where you
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can go and look at kind of the moon and say, Yep, I've designed
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something, I've made something or I've been involved in making
10:04
something happen and it's on the surface of the moon.
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And I think that is such an inspirational moment for me as
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to why I do what I do, because it's like, who gets to do that?
10:14
You. Can't get a much bigger picture
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than that, can you? Yeah, there's another.
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You can't see the Jupiter so easily, but we have a robotic
10:22
spacecraft powered by nano engines, which is currently
10:25
orbiting Jupiter and picking up data and sending images back.
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So we get to understand what's going on in Jupiter, what the
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composition of the surface is made-up of.
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And it's like it's, it's just like it's, it's an amazing
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experience. Explain to us about how the work
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the kind of different types of projects that is kind of maybe
10:47
different divisions you have here and what technologies
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you're researching and working with and then which space
10:54
missions they've ended up being used in?
10:57
Sure. So I would say our business
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centres solely on propulsion for spacecraft and for space access.
11:08
And when I say space access, you're talking about the ability
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to launch something into space. We typically only deal with on a
11:16
launcher kind of steering aspects of of that vehicle
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versus a large, large engines that would allow you to lift the
11:23
satellite off on the surface of the Earth and take it into
11:25
space. They would have to be done in a
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much different site to the one we operate because those engines
11:31
are much, much larger. And.
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So our engines typically featuring the ones that are
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either doing a bit of steering or moving satellites around in
11:41
space. So we've been doing that for the
11:44
last 30 years at developing new variants of liquid chemical
11:49
propulsion engines. And that's either the main
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engines used to take a satellite from the point it separates from
11:55
a launch vehicle to its final orbit that is going either
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around another planet or to a broader orbit around Earth.
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We then have some slightly smaller engines that are used to
12:07
help with the steering and positioning of satellites and
12:11
robotic space probes in space. But alongside that, we also deal
12:16
with managing the propellants that we feed our engines with
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through something called a propulsion system.
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And a propulsion system is basically all the bits that you
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need to connect to a rocket engine to make it go, to use it
12:30
in space. And so we developed those as
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well. So we're operating at a number
12:35
of different levels, components, engines, and then we're also
12:40
doing the integration of that into full propulsion systems
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that you would then put onto a satellite.
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And that whole propulsion system would be what's used to enable
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the mission to deliver the instruments to where they need
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to be, therefore transmitting signals or collecting data from
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the surface of the Earth or the surface of the Moon.
12:59
That's broadly what we cover. What projects have you got going
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at the moment? So quite a few actually.
13:08
How many would you have at one time?
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I guess it. So at the moment, I probably
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have somewhere in the region of 65 individual projects ongoing.
13:16
So we have a real mix of regular repeat products that we deliver
13:22
to multiple customers and each one of those projects is a
13:25
contract. And then there's others where
13:27
we're developing new technologies as well.
13:30
So the whole portfolio is probably 6065 projects in total
13:35
that we're we're managing with the team we have here.
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How does that split down in terms of kind of percentage?
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So how much of the work at the moment is about researching new
13:43
technologies? I would say that we are probably
13:49
somewhere around about 70% is new developments, new product
13:53
developments, yes. So that creates quite a dynamic
13:58
environment because with so much development ongoing, that's a
14:02
lot of interesting points where you expect an outcome and when
14:05
you don't get it, you have to come up with a recovery plan or
14:08
a changing plan or you've learnt something new which has evolved
14:11
your development. So it does create a very
14:13
interesting environment and dynamic environment in terms of
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every day is a day to solve a new problem.
14:17
Yeah, so the goal posts are continually changing because you
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might have unexpected results. Yeah, absolutely.
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And critically and our project team do a really good job of
14:27
managing the risk around that. And for us, when you're in that
14:30
high level of development, it's critical that you understand
14:33
where your opportunities for risks to occur are and how you
14:37
mitigate that and how you do that and keep a business
14:39
functioning under that. What space missions are you
14:44
involved with that will be happening in the next few years?
14:48
What are the really big ones that you feel really proud to
14:51
be, you know, working with? So there's quite a few different
14:56
ones that are out there. We've actually just delivered a
14:59
brand new engine which is called the Liros 4 engine to.
15:03
A. Customer called Firefly and
15:06
that's going on there Blue Ghost Lander.
15:08
So they are hoping to be the first private commercial
15:13
organisation to land on the moon successfully.
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There's been a few that have tried before them and got very
15:20
close but not quite got there. How do you view the project
15:24
management function within the organisation?
15:26
Has that become more central? Has it always been there?
15:31
The fact that Narrow is now a corporate partner of APM, you
15:35
know, obviously tells me that you take it very seriously.
15:38
So I just wondered if there is any kind of development of the
15:42
project management function here?
15:45
Yeah. And I think what I saw when I
15:48
joined the organisation, it was a very engineering LED
15:50
organisation. And it naturally needs to be
15:53
because of the types of products we make.
15:56
But actually good project engineering, project management
16:01
to support and augment the skills.
16:06
The pH, DS, the, the, the competent engineers that we have
16:10
in the organisation really helps to ensure we both focus on the
16:14
technical and also how we get there in a, in an appropriate
16:17
time frame. And how we really mention that
16:20
risk, not just technical, but project risk as well.
16:24
So we've been navigating to growing our project organisation
16:28
through the last five to 10 years as part of our journey to
16:33
where we're headed. And that so that's been that's
16:36
fundamental. You talked a little bit earlier
16:39
about entrepreneurship. So one of the things that we're
16:41
starting to embed is we're we're breaking the business down into
16:44
smaller segments and we're creating almost business units
16:47
inside so we can recreate that small start up feel.
16:52
And we're going to have programme managers running those
16:56
segments of the business almost like a small, like a general
16:59
manager or a managing director. So we build that
17:02
entrepreneurialship within our programme management function.
17:06
That's interesting. It does one of two things.
17:08
It starts to give us a breeding ground for succession planning
17:10
for general managers and managing directors.
17:13
But it also provides us the ability to empower our our
17:18
business units, our small product lines to make decisions
17:21
much more rapidly. Because as you hear, a lot of my
17:25
tone is about speedies of the essence, but the right way.
17:28
Not just going fast, but doing it here with competence, with
17:32
good understanding, so we keep our risks as low as we can
17:35
possibly manage with them. So it's very much something
17:38
we're encouraging because it's naturally, as you say, whilst
17:41
you're a start up and whilst you're doing huge amounts of
17:43
development, there is a lot of that agile decision making that
17:47
you would typically see in a more entrepreneurial
17:50
environment. So you're focusing very much on
17:52
the kind of culture of the business, I guess, and that's
17:55
people, yeah. What's 1 of the What are the
17:58
challenges around people's, the people side of things when it
18:01
comes to the work you do? So I don't think we struggle to
18:05
build a team and I don't think we struggle to build people that
18:09
are passionate, enthusiastic and prepared to make it work.
18:17
What more could you ask from a project team really.
18:20
Next up is Elliot Worsley who runs Namos Reliance programme.
18:24
He explained that as the business has grown, the company
18:27
went from managing projects as a group to now managing them
18:31
within 3 product lines. The 1st is fluidic components
18:34
using the propulsion systems for satellites or lunar landings or
18:38
missions to Mars. The second line is chemical
18:41
propulsion products for thrusters that are used for
18:44
spacecraft. And the third line, which is
18:47
what he looks after, is all about propulsion systems,
18:50
including the Reliance programme.
18:52
I asked him to tell me more. I think Reliance is very
18:58
interesting. I am very biassed.
19:02
Reliance is an acronym or a backronym.
19:06
It depends how you think it was created.
19:09
It's dams for rocket engine for lunar and interplanetary Anglo
19:13
Norwegian commercial exploration.
19:15
But it's really a, I'd say a first for Europe, or at least
19:19
unique in the sense that it takes what they did on Apollo,
19:25
for example, where they had the lunar descent engine, which is
19:29
capable of throttling. So this is effectively just
19:32
varying the amount of power your engine gives you, which can be
19:36
surprisingly complex. And it allows you to, to
19:39
essentially trust that throttle as you, as you break from 10s of
19:43
thousands of kilometres an hour to to a stop.
19:48
Reliance was envisaged then to target Arcanal, which is
19:53
Europe's first lunar Lander, which is due to launch in 2031.
19:58
It's one of two potential engines being considered, but
20:02
we're hopeful. When do you find out?
20:05
In October. OK, so quite soon.
20:09
So by the end of the year, which is why we have testing going on
20:11
at the moment to try and support that.
20:14
What makes Reliance unique though, and what allows it to
20:17
land on only the Moon, the Mars, and potentially Europa or other
20:21
planetary bodies, is the fact that it houses electric pumps,
20:28
which is slightly unique for rocket engine.
20:31
So typically a rocket engine works a bit like taps on a sink.
20:37
You have big tanks, one for the fuel, one for the oxidizer, and
20:40
when they mix, they combust. But these taps essentially
20:44
adjust the flow rates of both of those to decide what you get in
20:49
your engine. Now that means the tanks are
20:52
very heavy and all the equipment upstream is very heavy because
20:55
you have to hold things at very high pressures so that when you
20:59
turn the tap on, it flows straight out reliance because it
21:04
houses these pumps, they actually take something from
21:06
very low pressure, not not significantly higher pressure
21:10
than like your water system at home, and it pumps it right up
21:13
into the right conditions for the engine.
21:16
So it means everything upstream can be lighter, simpler, easier.
21:21
So it allows you to have a simpler spacecraft, which then
21:25
allows you to carry more payload.
21:28
And it's that it's that piece that's super important within
21:31
the space industry is the cost per kilo landed.
21:36
So that can range in the real, it's in the region I should say
21:41
of one to two million U.S. dollars per kilogramme to get
21:47
something to the moon. When you talk about the actual
21:49
cost of everything per kilo landed.
21:52
So something like Reliance could save certainly for Argonaut,
21:57
this lunar land emission could save something like 100 to 200
22:01
kilogrammes of mass, which then translates to an awful lot of
22:06
money. So This is why this is really
22:08
the business case for doing it. Tell me about what is that like?
22:13
It's nerve racking and I say fracking from a project
22:18
management perspective. I'd love to manage something.
22:22
I knew once everything was designed and even partially
22:26
tested that we had good confidence.
22:30
The problem is the temperatures in those inside a rocket engine
22:33
go up to thousands of degrees so and you can't see what's
22:37
happening in there. So only test will tell you and
22:42
we have all sorts of problems over the years.
22:45
I'm not going to create details, but we often stand on the hill
22:50
across from the the test site for good reason, health and
22:53
safety. But we listen, we listen to the
22:56
countdown over the Tanoi. You hear it fire typically at
22:59
the moment, at least for something like Reliance, it will
23:01
fire for a few seconds. After some time it will start
23:05
firing for minutes and then half an hour potentially in one go.
23:09
And that, that is something I'm genuinely looking forward to
23:13
because not only for me, but you see the passion in the team.
23:17
That's, I think that's what I like is, is just seeing, seeing
23:21
everyone else's hard work and vision and passion pay off.
23:26
Because we're, we're quite fortunate.
23:28
We work in an industry where there is a lot of passion
23:32
around. You know, people aren't forced
23:33
to do the job they do. On the contrary, quite a lot of
23:37
our work goes into managing the welfare of the team to make sure
23:41
they don't. OK, because they don't want to
23:43
stop working. Sometimes, you know, people be
23:46
online late on Friday, the weekend, whatever it is, and you
23:51
just need to be mindful of that. You don't want to, you don't
23:53
want to restrict it. You don't want to give them a
23:56
slap on the wrist for doing something they genuinely want to
23:58
do. And I don't think that's our
24:02
position to do that anyway. But I think you just need to
24:06
foster it, motivate them and also help them manage that
24:09
pressure. But because someone's going to
24:12
be on the critical path and just trying to help someone through
24:17
that is important. Does he want to prevent burnout?
24:20
Really. Yeah, something we need to pay
24:23
attention to. Now Elliot has given me a
24:28
programme overview, I wanted to speak to a senior project
24:31
manager involved with a nitty gritty of project work.
24:34
So meet Lucy Stock, who until very recently worked for Namo in
24:37
that role before leaving to become a consultant.
24:40
I began by asking her what the biggest project management
24:43
lessons are that she's learnt over her career in space.
24:48
One of the, the really hard things about a project
24:51
management role is you obviously take responsibility for the
24:53
timelines and sometimes you do need to go to the customer with,
24:57
with negative news, you know, we're delayed for XYZ reasons
25:01
and and that's really hard. So one thing can we try and do,
25:05
especially with the younger project management's is to
25:07
encourage them after a particularly stressful meeting
25:09
with a customer to reach out to other peers within the business
25:14
and do kind of like a hot debrief.
25:16
Because just talking through that the bit that was tricky can
25:19
really help. Are there any other big project
25:23
management lessons you've learned over your career or
25:27
working here that you that you would pass on to like if you're
25:31
just, you know, your first project management job?
25:34
Oh yeah, sure. What would you say to yourself?
25:36
You know, make sure you. Do this, yeah.
25:38
You know, one thing which I've learnt over years of project
25:40
management, which I think is probably the key, is
25:42
understanding where to dive into the deep end, into the detail
25:46
and where you can not manage things so closely.
25:50
So with really big projects, there's different streams of
25:53
work going on that interact in different ways.
25:56
And I think it's being really sensible about the bits that
26:00
need to be micromanaged on a day by day, hourly basis.
26:04
You know, it's super critical, super complicated and really
26:07
getting into the weeds of those areas.
26:09
But you obviously can't do that everywhere.
26:11
So it's understanding, depending on the stage of the project life
26:14
cycle and the type of project and the different streams of
26:17
work within it, which bits to really get into the weeds of and
26:20
which bits you don't need to. How do you make a decision like
26:23
that? So for me, having a really
26:25
strong risk management process, so at the beginning of a
26:28
programme really delving into the high risk areas, what's
26:32
going to be the biggest issues that we're likely to see.
26:35
Obviously there's always those Black Swan events that you, it's
26:38
difficult to predict, but having a really strong risk analysis at
26:41
the beginning to try and understand where you might see
26:45
issues. And if you do see issues, what
26:47
their impacts going to be. You might have an issue in one
26:50
particular stream of work, but actually is not in the critical
26:53
path or it can be resolved easily.
26:56
Standard products, you know, it's, it's not going to be an
26:58
issue, but there might be another area that's super
27:00
critical on the timeline and it's a new development.
27:03
And so it's really looking at the project of the whole and try
27:05
and breaking it up into, into chunks and understanding which
27:09
bits you're really going to have to spend your time focusing on.
27:12
OK. And I guess that breaking up is
27:14
key at the beginning as well, putting things into clear work
27:17
streams so that you can manage that.
27:20
What makes for a good project manager and what makes for a
27:23
good project team? The culture.
27:25
And how do you go about achieving that?
27:28
I think 1 good thing about space projects, it's fully multi
27:32
discipline team, which I like. So you've got Mechanical
27:35
Engineers, you've got electrical engineers, you've got your
27:38
quality people, your product assurance people, and you've got
27:42
your super senior technicians as well that come in.
27:45
So it's a multi discipline team, people looking at different
27:48
areas and I think making sure that they all understand the
27:54
goal. I think everyone's working on
27:55
different things within the project, but there's there's
27:58
always, there's always a goal, whether that's a short term goal
28:01
to finish something within the next couple of weeks or the
28:04
longer term goal. But giving the team the
28:07
perspective of the schedule. Because quite often you check
28:11
tasks out at team members and you don't get them involved in
28:14
the bigger picture. But I think it's really
28:16
important to do it at the beginning and then at regular
28:18
stages to the project, remind people what the key milestones
28:22
are, what the key deliverables are, and ultimately what this
28:26
thing is going to end up doing. Because if people lose
28:29
perspective of any of those things, everything falls apart
28:33
really. What I know, why don't you tell
28:36
me some of the projects you're working at the moment and maybe
28:39
one that you've worked that has been completed that you feel
28:42
most proud of and O the erhas roject you're working on now,
28:47
how it's set U, how it's run, but with the roject that you've
28:51
you've done in the AST that you feel roud of justice.
28:55
What works about that? What were the challenges?
28:58
What are the risks you face and how you went about overcoming
29:01
those? Yeah, sure.
29:02
It'd be really nice to get real insight into what it's like to
29:05
work on projects like these. So my the project I'm most proud
29:09
of, which is the one you're going to go and see later, is
29:10
the National Space Propulsion Test Facility upon RJ site,
29:14
which was a slightly different project for me because it was
29:16
more of a more of a facility based project.
29:18
And it was the first thing I did when I came to Namo.
29:21
It was basically building a vacuum test facility for rocket
29:26
engines. And there's, there's literally a
29:28
handful of places within the UK that can actually test engines
29:31
of this class. And for us that made it really
29:33
difficult because when our engines got to test stage, we
29:37
had to package up these really important expensive engines,
29:40
send them off to America with an engineer as well to be tested.
29:45
And the amount of extra organisation and risk you're
29:49
adding to a project in order having to do that and, and the
29:52
time as well. Everyone's trying to develop as
29:54
rapidly as they can now and it just, you know, months and
29:58
months doing it. So, so now we've got a facility
30:02
literally on our doorstep where we can do either medium altitude
30:06
or high altitude testing and get that feedback.
30:08
So it's really accelerated our design loop.
30:11
So working on that facility for me was really exciting because
30:13
it was an enabler. So we were all there where where
30:16
it was being built and put together lots of testing, but
30:19
that facility worked first time. And that never happens like it,
30:23
you know, it's there's, there's always something that goes
30:26
wrong. That's congratulations for that.
30:28
What, what, What made it a success?
30:30
So it was communication for sure, daily stand ups with all
30:33
the key people together to make sure everybody knew what
30:36
everybody else was doing, where there might be issues, concerns
30:40
or crossovers. So it was, yeah, a daily stand
30:44
up where all the key players were together.
30:46
Depending on the cycle. I mean, some weeks it might have
30:49
been really important for the calling people to be in that
30:51
stand up and some weeks it might have been really important for
30:54
the power people to be in there. So just depended on the stage of
30:57
the project. But yeah, clear daily stand up
30:59
so everyone knew who was doing what.
31:01
Yeah. And just by using that tone
31:04
standups do you what kind of approach do you take to roject
31:07
management here? Is it agile?
31:08
Is it, you know, more traditional methods?
31:11
Is it everything whatever works from the toolbox?
31:14
Yeah. So a really interesting question
31:16
because we space traditionally leans quite heavily towards a
31:21
waterfall standard approach, but what we are trying to do is
31:25
implement pockets of agile to accelerate things.
31:27
So. That's interesting.
31:28
How? How's that working?
31:30
Yeah. How do you do it?
31:31
Yeah. So it's, it's, I think we'll
31:33
never get fully agile because we're building big mechanical
31:36
systems, but we can do a hybrid where we look.
31:40
So say for example, with the facility, we look at individual
31:43
areas of the site. So say for example the thrust
31:47
stand which the engine is mounted on.
31:49
So when it fires you can you can measure what the thrust is,
31:51
which wasn't one of the key measurements we take when we're
31:53
testing the engines. You could look at that as a
31:56
complete sub assembly and say OK we can't finish the whole system
31:59
until the end, but we can take each sub assembly as far as we
32:03
can and test it and de risk it as much as we can before the
32:07
final point. OK.
32:08
So where do you think generally it's heading towards the kind of
32:12
SpaceX model? I think it's somewhere in
32:14
between new space and old space. Middle space.
32:17
Middle space. Middle space.
32:18
That sounds exciting. Yeah, I think, I think, I think
32:21
the extreme of new space and the maybe lack of attention to
32:25
detail in some areas and then the reverse in the old space
32:30
management style. I think they'll they'll
32:32
hopefully be a happy medium in the middle where we can be a bit
32:34
more rapid but not miss things. The most cutting edge test
32:40
facility that Lucy successfully delivered is a short walk away
32:43
from its offices. I went to take a look around
32:46
accompanied by Carl Smith, a senior test engineer, who
32:49
explained some of what goes on there.
32:53
So I managed the National Space Fortune facility.
32:57
So it's my job to make sure that that keeps running safely and
33:01
efficiently. Yeah.
33:02
And how often are you using facilities here?
33:05
Every day. We are, we're, we're not hot
33:08
fire testing every day, but we're, we're, we're always doing
33:11
sort of engine prep, site prep set down and, and we're firing
33:16
sort of every two or three weeks really.
33:19
What's the hot fire test? So hot fire test is where we,
33:24
we, we fire the engine. So we provide propellants into
33:26
the engine. I'll explain a little bit more
33:29
about that. Yeah.
33:31
So what? What are we approaching here?
33:34
So this is Nanos J3 test cell. OK.
33:37
So it just looks like a big concrete bunker with a lot of
33:40
stuff coming out of it. Yes, yes, I'll explain that a
33:44
little bit now. So, yeah, so J3 test cell, which
33:47
is, which is the cell here was built about a decade ago.
33:53
It was initially built to support the development of our
33:56
1100 Newton HTE engine. So that uses this.
34:02
This site uses monomethyl hydrogen or hydrogen as a fuel
34:06
and it uses Mon 3 as the oxidizer and this was originally
34:11
a sea level test facility. What does that mean?
34:13
Sea level. So that means that you hot fire
34:16
test out into the open air basically at ambient pressures.
34:21
And that's absolutely great for the majority of engine
34:24
development, but it'll only get you so far.
34:26
To fully qualify an engine for flight, you have to test in a
34:31
vacuum. OK.
34:33
And, and also every engine that we sell goes through acceptance
34:37
testing as well. And again, you have to test in a
34:39
vacuum to do that. And that's where the National
34:42
Space Portion Test facility comes in.
34:44
So what you see coming out of the building here, that's part
34:47
of the National Space Portion Test facility, that's actually
34:51
owned by the UK Space Agency. What is it?
34:54
Can you describe it? Yes, I can describe it.
34:57
So it it's a little bit complicated.
34:59
I think I'll if I come on to that it.
35:02
Looks like a tunnel to me, yeah. Yeah, it it, it sort of is.
35:05
But yeah, if I I'll explain that OK once I've explained the
35:08
engine. So I think it'll make a little
35:09
bit more sense. To you OK, Yeah.
35:12
So it's owned by the UK Space Agency.
35:14
But, but, but we operate it at Namo and it effectively converts
35:20
J3 from a sea level test facility to A to a vacuum
35:24
facility. And that's, that's really great
35:27
for us because we used to have to send all of our engines to
35:30
the US to test, but now we've brought that capability in House
35:34
of Westcott. Most acceptance testing that we
35:36
do on engines will normally be a day or two.
35:39
OK, Yeah. So when was the last time you
35:41
did one? Last week.
35:44
We've got another plan next week.
35:45
Yeah. Oh.
35:45
I came on the wrong week. It's always the way.
35:51
So are you standing far away to observe these experiments?
35:55
We we watch from the control room.
35:56
We can go and take a look in there now if you'd like.
35:58
Yeah, I'd like to have a look at the control room.
35:59
Thank you. Close this up.
36:05
There. So anyone who wants to test
36:07
anything along the lines that you're doing has to come here to
36:11
test it. There's not many places in the
36:13
world that do what we do, really.
36:15
There's obviously many places in America and also in Germany, but
36:23
you know, This site is, is is one-of-a-kind, and it's very
36:25
efficient at what it does. Yeah.
36:29
So this is the control room. So this gives you an idea of
36:31
what the the the team will see when they're firing an engine.
36:34
Yeah. So what's so in thought is being
36:38
tested. The team will be in here.
36:40
Yes, absolutely. Yes, this is the control room.
36:42
So we run the site with two operators generally.
36:46
We will quite often have a a support engineer here as well
36:49
with us. So what you're looking at here
36:51
is the site controller and data acquisition software that allows
36:55
us to operate the various systems.
36:57
There's like 10 screens here. Yes, there's there's a lot to
37:01
look at, but there's a lot of autonomy to it as well.
37:04
And that's why we can run the site with just two, two
37:06
operators. So the first screen over here,
37:08
for example, is the software for the national space portion test
37:12
facility. So that allows us to control the
37:14
vacuum pumps in the cooling system.
37:17
And it's actually continually monitoring instrumentation
37:22
around the whole system. So there's instrumentation on
37:24
the diffuser, the plume intercooler, the vacuum
37:26
generation plant, the cooling system constantly monitoring the
37:29
health of the system. And if any parameters start
37:32
falling out of predefined limits, and initially it will
37:35
flag up a warning. So you know, there's there's
37:37
something wrong here. If parameters continue to fall
37:40
out of predefined limits, it will automatically abort the
37:44
firing, shut down the system, and put it into a safe state.
37:47
So that autonomy allows the the test team to focus on the engine
37:51
they're testing and almost, you know, ignore all of those
37:54
systems that are just running in the background.
37:56
OK. So what we've also got is the
38:00
site control for the propellant feed system that allows us to
38:05
operate various valves remotely around the system, also allows
38:09
us to set and regulate tank pressures.
38:12
We've got some auxiliary control software that allows us to
38:15
control things like propellant in that temperatures, complete
38:18
load cell calibrations. We've got 2 thermal imaging
38:21
cameras that you see a screenshot up on top here, which
38:25
is what we see during the firing, an optical camera across
38:29
there. Oh, so you?
38:30
Can actually see the engines. You can actually see the engine
38:34
firing yet, so you can see it glowing.
38:37
That's pretty cool. And then we've got our data
38:40
acquisition system here, which is obviously logging all of the
38:44
different instrumentation around the system.
38:47
And we've got what we call up here our our real time engine
38:50
monitoring software. And that that's great because it
38:52
shows us sort of at a glance if we're in spec on key parameters.
38:56
Are you safe in here? Like if something goes wrong in
38:59
there. These are, I mean, it's like in
39:01
a bunker here. These are designed.
39:03
Yeah, yeah. This, this building was actually
39:06
designed with like with like a a rating.
39:11
I don't know what you call it, a explosion rating?
39:15
Really. So you're pretty safe in.
39:16
Here, so you're fairly safe. And on the desk is a red button,
39:21
a big. Red button, yeah.
39:22
A big red button. It does exactly what you expect.
39:24
Emergency stop. Normal abort So.
39:27
Yeah. So you hit that and it basically
39:29
shuts the engine down, stops it from from from falling.
39:32
Have you hit that recently? We do actually have to hit that
39:35
quite often, but it's not normally in an emergency.
39:38
It's normally, particularly if you're doing R&D research stuff,
39:44
you might get an engines getting a little bit hot maybe or it
39:46
might go unstable and you just hit that really just to protect
39:49
the hardware. I really want to hit that button
39:52
away. You can hit it now.
39:53
It's not going to do anything if you hit it now.
39:55
Can I? Yeah, absolutely.
39:58
Yeah, that was quite satisfying. Carl covered the rest of the
40:04
facility with me after giving me a flavour of his work on the
40:07
test site. Everyone I've spoken to seemed
40:10
excited by the changes that the commercialisation of the space
40:13
industry is bringing about. This move to a more agile way of
40:16
running space projects is something Carolina Zetorska, a
40:20
recently qualified project manager at Namo, has thought a
40:22
lot about since switching career from a career in engineering.
40:26
She views the disruption space startups are bringing about as a
40:29
positive thing. But first, let's listen to what
40:32
she has to say about her career change and the projects she
40:35
works on. So I'm one of the project
40:39
managers at Namo within the chemical propulsion stream of
40:44
products. And my roles and
40:47
responsibilities are basically I managed projects all the way
40:51
from like the conceptual at the stage, which starts with like
40:56
proposals and bids is where we bid to, you know, win a contract
41:00
with a new customer and then all the way through project kick off
41:06
procurement, manufacture, testing and then finally
41:09
delivery of that project to their customers do.
41:12
You have a favourite bit. No, I love all of it actually.
41:16
So that's one of the reasons. So I'm sure we'll get to it
41:19
eventually, but the reason why I like project management is
41:22
because it's so varied. So what are you working on right
41:25
now? Which projects are you working
41:26
on? So I'm responsible for our Leros
41:31
range of engines. So either the bigger apogee
41:34
engines which are traditionally used for raising the apogee of
41:40
of an orbit, so. What does that mean for people
41:43
who don't know? So that's basically making sure
41:47
that you're in the right orbit around Earth, for example.
41:50
So the apogee point is, if you think of an orbit as an eclipse,
41:54
it as an ellipse, sorry, it's the closest point to Earth
41:57
because it's not a circular orbit goes like this.
42:00
So it's the closest point to to Earth.
42:05
So the apogee engines will raise that that they will.
42:10
They will increase the distance of the apogee point to Earth and
42:16
then the smaller engines. Why do you why do you need to do
42:19
that? It depends on what your mission
42:21
is doing. So obviously the purpose of the
42:25
spacecraft as a whole mission will dictate where in space the
42:31
spacecraft needs to be. So it's like the positioning of
42:35
the spacecraft around whichever object, whichever planet, that's
42:39
the circling around. Are there some up in space right
42:44
now or going to be launched soon?
42:45
So not the ones that I have delivered because I've only been
42:49
here just under 2 years and unfortunately this space in this
42:54
tree doesn't move that fast. So when will they?
42:57
Do you have an idea of when they will actually be going?
42:59
In space it always changes, so I think the last it depends on
43:05
which projects. So the one I'm thinking of now
43:07
is mass sample return project that we delivered engines for to
43:12
Airbus Defence in Space and Stevenage.
43:15
So they are putting together a mission for NASA slash ESA
43:20
project and the aim of that mission is to retrieve a sample
43:27
from Mars and then bring him back to Earth for sort of like
43:32
high tech analysis in in Earth laboratories.
43:36
So that one was scheduled to launch around 2027.
43:42
How do you feel about the future of space in the UKI?
43:46
Think recently we've had a few more, I would say disruptive
43:53
companies and concepts where the space industry in Europe is
43:57
based on heritage and is based on things you know are going to
44:01
work. And I guess the time aspect of
44:07
that means that projects do take longer.
44:12
But recently we've had what I call new space companies pop up
44:19
where they don't want the heritage because obviously the
44:22
time and cost comes with that. They want new and quick and
44:28
different solutions to get them into space and get them flying
44:32
cheaper and faster. And I think that will be
44:35
disruptive because in a good way, because suppliers will have
44:40
to learn how to deliver to tighter schedules and smaller
44:48
budgets. But also customers that are
44:50
competing against each other will be competing in two
44:54
different worlds. So if you're in a world of
44:57
heritage versus new space, you're going to have to somehow
45:00
bridge that gap. What are the biggest challenges
45:04
you face running a project here? I think the biggest lessons
45:09
learnt for me, yeah, would be that it's quite often I don't
45:17
know if it's just my style or if project management managers do
45:21
it across the board, but I try and patch things up to make sure
45:26
we can continue with the project.
45:29
So if something goes wrong and is, you know, maybe doesn't fall
45:32
into my remit, but I can make a call for someone to fix it.
45:36
I will take on the responsibility of whatever needs
45:38
needs doing that day to make sure we can progress with the
45:43
project, which I I called a warrior mode.
45:47
So you're, you're like, it's not your job to fix it, but you'll
45:52
do anything in your power to make sure it gets fixed quickly
45:56
and reliably. And anything like that that
45:59
comes up you're just going to deal with.
46:02
But it's not sustainable, especially when you manage quite
46:05
a few projects at the same time. There's warrior mode or like
46:09
patching things up. We'll work in the short term,
46:13
but the most important thing is to have lessons learnt, sessions
46:17
and reflect and give yourself time to think.
46:20
How do I prevent it from happening again?
46:23
Rather than, you know, be a hero for the moment, fix something,
46:28
and then move on to the next thing.
46:38
Thanks again to Carolina, Carl, Lucy, Elliot and Rob for joining
46:42
us and to you for listening to the APM Podcast.
46:45
I really enjoy going on site to meet just a handful of people
46:47
who are putting the UK on the International Space map.
46:50
Not only to understand the projects they're working on and
46:53
the important lessons they've learnt along the way, but also
46:56
what it feels like to be working in a sector that is undergoing
46:58
such disruption and change. If you'd like to find out more
47:02
about NAMO, then look out for the Autumn 2024 issue project
47:06
where I take a deep dive into the business.
47:09
Don't forget to look out for more episodes or to rate and
47:11
review us wherever you get your podcasts.
47:14
We'd welcome you to get in touch with your comments, feedback and
47:17
suggestions by emailing us at APM Podcast at
47:21
thinkpublishing.co.uk. This podcast has been brought to
47:25
you by APM, the childhood body for the project profession.
47:29
For more information on APM, visit apm.org.uk.