During the autumn quarter of 2007, I had the opportunity to co-op with Jacobs Engineering, a worldwide engineering firm. One of Jacobs Engineering’s clients is NASA. My location was the well known Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. I was assigned to the orbital debris group. I processed and analyzed data of space debris collected from the Goldstone and Haystack radars. With this co-op I had the chance to apply my classroom knowledge of signal processing and orbital mechanics to real life applications. The data that I processed and analyzed was used to help model and simulate the space environment in low earth orbit, which in turn would help to avoid catastrophic collisions of space debris with the International Space Station (ISS), Space Shuttle, satellites, and astronauts during space walks. Not only was the work interesting but I was also able to enjoy the amazing perks of working with NASA which included all the tours and lectures. I attended tours of the ISS and witnessed space shuttle life size mock ups and participated in the motion based shuttle cockpit simulators that the astronauts use to train on. Also I had the chance to see the astronaut’s food lab, a huge thermal vacuum chamber, the new moon rover, and a robot named “ Robonaut” who will eventually take over for the astronauts during spacewalks. Besides seeing all these amazing things I heard stories of travels from some pretty fascinating people such as flight directors and astronauts. The best and most fulfilling part of this co-op job was getting the chance to make a contribution to the advancement of future space exploration by analyzing garbage one piece at a time.