The Skybox Satellite Operator Intern Program - Benefits and Lessons Learned

The Skybox Satellite Operator Intern Program - Benefits and Lessons Learned

The Skybox Flight Operator program trains rotating cohorts of college students and recent graduates to fly our constellation of microsatellites. This program has provided significant benefits for Skybox Flight Operations. First, it attracts highly motivated, energized people, who are interested in the many short-term growth opportunities offered by the role, but who may not be interested in a shift-based role with few long-term growth opportunities. Staffing skilled and motivated individuals allows us to quickly adapt to changes in mission needs; this agility is crucial to a rapidly evolving flight operations system. Second, the recurring training for each cohort keeps other engineering teams engaged, catalyzing interactions and improving the knowledge and abilities of our team. Third, the program has brought a stream of talent into our company, creating a pipeline of full time employment candidates that already understand our satellite fleet. We believe that our program has maintained the health and safety of our satellites, while providing valuable skills and experience to the program participants. In this paper we explain these benefits, and examine the lessons we have learned after two years of running this evolving program.