When Kavya Saravanan was considering her career, she (like many of us) fell hard for the sci-fi space exploration presented in 2014’s Interstellar.
While her University of Michigan undergrad ultimately focused on electric aircraft—as Saravanan is passionate about sustainable aviation—space continued to call to her, especially because “I couldn’t think of a more booming industry,” she said.
Owning orbit: Saravanan pursued a masters degree at Michigan in autonomous systems and controls, and learned about Relativity Space through a school presentation. “I was craving that fast-paced, high-ownership environment,” Saravanan recalled.
One internship later, she was hooked. For the past year, she’s been an avionics systems engineer at the rocket company. Saravanan works on autonomous flight safety systems—including monitoring, rocket health metrics, and trajectory—for the medium-heavy-lift Terran R, which may launch next year.
In short, her job involves getting from ground to space in a way that can be certified by government safety authorities.
Looking up: Saravanan is heavily invested in community. Even before joining Relativity Space, she was internal vice-president for her university’s Women in Aeronautics and Astronautics organization, and she co-founded a student group developing a sustainable UAV for humanitarian support.
Looking ahead, Saravanan says she hopes to mentor more people at Relativity—particularly young, female engineers. “A lot of people have done that for me,” she said.
Already she works with Relativity’s women’s resource group to help make space more accessible. “I think putting a lot of time and energy into doing those things is very valuable, because you want to bring a different perspective to the industry.”
