NASA’s Orion spacecraft recently returned to Earth as part of Artemis I, the first of several missions intended to land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon. Alexa was on the mission as part of Callisto, a technology demonstration payload embedded in the spacecraft and developed by Amazon, Lockheed Martin, and Cisco.
Sahana Arani, Pratima Dandamudi, and Lacey Williams—three women at Amazon who helped launch Alexa into space—all became obsessed with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) at an early age, and are hoping to encourage the next generation of explorers, scientists, and engineers.
As a quality-assurance engineer on the Amazon team responsible for sending Alexa into space as part of Callisto, Dandamudi oversaw end-to-end software testing for the Virtual Crew Experience, which enabled people in Houston to interact with Alexa.
"We tested more than 3,500 'utterances' for different domains, including cabin control, instrument reading, and data transmission," she explained. “This helped the team fine-tune the natural-language algorithms so Alexa could ‘understand’ commands and take appropriate action."
Dandamudi's advice for anyone who’s eager to pursue a career in science and technology? Make the most of available resources.
"If you're struggling with something like linear equations, don’t assume it has anything to do with aptitude," she advised. "We're in the information age, so go online and watch videos that outline multiple approaches to linear equations—or whatever has you stuck."
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