Space careers: not just astronauts

Few fly to space, but hundreds of thousands work for it on Earth: rocket and satellite engineers, onboard software programmers, flight controllers, astrophysicists, space doctors, suit designers. In Europe that is ESA — astronaut centre in Cologne, mission control in Darmstadt. The real road to space starts with physics and maths.

• ●Rocket engineer: physics + maths + design
• ●Satellite programmer: code that must never crash
• ●Flight controller: steers probes from Earth
• ●Astrophysicist: studies stars, planets, black holes