Barbara Janoiko - Co-op
My name is Barbara Janoiko, and I’m really excited to be on the White Team! I’m from San Antonio, TX, and I’m a senior mechanical engineering major at Texas A&M University. Why mechanical engineering and why Texas A&M? Well, I’ve always known I would be an engineer because I loved math and science, but would have never thought I would be a mechanical engineer. Physics was never my strong subject, and here I am using it in all my classes, but I love it! Mechanical engineering is such a versatile field… I can work anywhere and do anything when I graduate. And why Texas A&M? Besides being given a lot of money to attend there and the fact that it is a world-class university in a cozy town fairly close to major cities in Texas, it is close enough to home to where I can go there whenever I want to, yet it is far enough away from home to where I can be independent.
This is my second co-op tour at NASA,
but my third co-op tour at Johnson Space Center.
Last summer I worked for United Space Alliance in Shuttle Robotics
Training (training astronauts to fly the arm on the shuttle). My main project was to write and edit a training manual for
astronauts, instructors, and flight controllers that followed their training
courses. Then I switched
to NASA and have been here since January.
This spring semester, I worked in EA5, the Biomedical Hardware
Development and Engineering Office.
I designed and fabricated items to support biomedical experiments
on the International Space Station (ISS).
My main project was to design and fabricate a stowage kit for a
blood pressure device that will be used for experiments on the ISS.
This summer, I’m working in the Manufacturing Integration and Technology
Branch on the X-38 project. The
X-38 is the prototype
for the Crew Return Vehicle (CRV) for the ISS.
I’m designing Ground Support Equipment (GSE) for V201, which is
the X-38 vehicle that will be taken to orbit aboard the space shuttle
for a test flight back to Earth.
So far this summer, I have designed and fabricated a drill guide
to open up holes on V201 and a temporary lighting fixture to go inside
V201’s cabin.