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In one of the spacecraft operations centers inside CU Boulder鈥檚 (LASP), a woman鈥檚 calm voice pipes in over a speaker:听

鈥淟oss of signal, MMS-4,鈥� the voice reports.听

The room looks like a smaller version of the NASA flight control centers that show up in every space movie. The announcement is a routine cue that one of the four spacecraft that make up the (MMS) mission has finished its latest round of transmitting data back to Earth.听

Often the first person to hear such alerts isn鈥檛 a grizzled mission control veteran, but rather a CU Boulder student. That鈥檚 because LASP employs student 鈥渃ommand controllers鈥� to help operate the space missions under its supervision.

The job comes with long hours and late nights, said Reidar Larsen, a graduate student who started working at LASP as an undergraduate at CU Boulder. But it also gives students something they can鈥檛 get at any other university: hands-on experience with scientific instruments orbiting hundreds of miles from Earth.听

鈥淟ASP is the only place in the world that has students work on spacecraft like this,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 completely unique.鈥�

The students have a soundboard of audio alerts that would rival most morning radio shows. There鈥檚 a clip of Chewbacca roaring, R2D2 beeping and the one you don鈥檛 want to hear: 鈥淩ed alert. Red alert. Houston, we have a problem.鈥� Each one means something different for different spacecraft.

鈥淚f something big happens, we have audible alarms that say 鈥楬ey, look at me. Something鈥檚 wrong,鈥欌�� said Larsen.

Not your typical all-nighter

Learning the ropes, however, is a bit of a juggling act. In addition to MMS, LASP oversees aspects of the operations for NASA鈥檚 (SORCE) and (AIM) missions. The institute has also branched into operating toaster-sized satellites called CubeSats.听

On any given day, roughly one dozen student operators might send new instructions to one of those spacecraft, run diagnostics to make sure it鈥檚 working correctly or troubleshoot if something has gone wrong.听

鈥淲e rely a lot on our students to do analyses, to help command the spacecraft,鈥� said Lee Reedy, a professional flight director at LASP. 鈥淲e鈥檙e teaching them a lot of valuable skills here, and they鈥檝e gone on to do all sorts of great things.鈥�

That much responsibility takes a lot of commitment. To qualify as command controllers at LASP, students undergo an entire summer of training, amounting to 500 hours. And because spacecraft don鈥檛 stick to regular work hours, the students often pull shifts on weekends and nights after their peers have gone to sleep.

鈥淲e all get along really well,鈥� he said. 鈥淢ost of the people you work with are also in your classes, so not only can you talk with them about work, but you can also commiserate about your homework assignments.鈥�

Ginger Beerman, a senior studying aerospace engineering at CU Boulder, agrees. 鈥淲e learn a lot of things that you wouldn鈥檛 learn in your classes,鈥� she said.听

Fixing problems

In the operations center, however, things don鈥檛 always go according to plan.听

Larsen remembers a difficult week in 2016 when the Kepler Space Telescope, a NASA mission that LASP formerly operated, went into emergency mode with little warning. Kepler was floating almost dead in the water, a potentially catastrophic systems failure that engineers eventually chalked up to a 鈥渇ault storm.鈥�

Students and professionals alike at LASP worked around the clock until they could pull Kepler out of the emergency. That sort of problem solving is what Larsen loves most about being a command controller.听

鈥淵ou get a dataset and have to learn how you can pull it apart and make sure the spacecraft is working right,鈥� Larsen said. 鈥淚f there is something that鈥檚 odd, you try to diagnose that and figure out what鈥檚 really going on.鈥�

Such an approach to fixing problems also explains why former LASP command controllers have gone on to work at hubs for the aerospace industry. That includes Lockheed Martin Space, Blue Origin and various NASA centers.

At LASP, 鈥渢he professionals value your opinion,鈥� said Katie Steward, a junior studying aerospace engineering. 鈥淭hey really take your input and make decisions based off of it.鈥�

Fellow junior Trevor Weschler added that his time at LASP has given him something even better than a resume boost: a personal connection to space.听

鈥淭hat鈥檚 been really cool鈥攖o spend my Friday talking to something in deep space,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here aren鈥檛 many people who can say that.鈥�