This UCF Engineering Alum’s Name Is Written in Outer Space

Every 90 minutes or so, an Acadia satellite designed by Capella Space completes another orbit of our planet. From 400 miles up, it could theoretically locate a frying pan lost at a campsite. If you had the same visual capability as the satellite's synthetic aperture radar (SAR), you'd be able look up and see all of these complex components strategically connected into a technological marvel.

You'd also see a name etched onto the satellite: Cassie Todd.

"It tends to be a conversation piece at parties," says Todd, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from UCF in 2014. "If you told me in high school I'd be working in the space industry and have my name on hardware…"

Todd's story captures what happens when curiosity meets opportunity - the kind of opportunity UCF was built to create. From classrooms and labs to launchpads and orbit, Knights like her are turning knowledge into real-world impact, helping Florida and the nation lead the next era of space exploration.

The Acadia satellite Todd helped design can do better than spot a stray cooking utensil. It's helped researchers find walruses resting on remote shores without disturbing them. Vulcanologists use satellite data to monitor active volcanoes. Urban planners can monitor the integrity of infrastructure. Cloud cover, darkness, and weather do not obstruct Capella's SAR, which means users of the technology can identify oil spills in the oceans, illegal logging in the Amazon, and conduct precise flood mapping to potentially avert natural disasters. The imagery, used in conjunction with Google Maps data, tipped off the world that Russia was about to invade Ukraine in February 2022.

"Whenever I hear how the data from our satellites is being used, it gives me this great feeling that my work is being used as a positive force in the world."

Todd has been an important figure at Capella since she joined what was still considered a Bay-area startup in 2017 as "employee number 20" (the company now employs more than 200 people). It had been her goal to work for a young tech enterprise where she could have her hands on every stage of a project. That's exactly what she's experienced.

"The adrenaline is always going because we're at the leading edge of this exciting field - the commercial space industry," Todd says. "Early on, when we were working toward our first launch, our best concepts would come up when we were running out of steam late in the day. The ideas give us the energy to work into the night and on weekends. This is what I wanted, to work on projects end to end instead of being silo'd. I always know exactly where each piece of the pie fits."

As assembly integration and test lead (AI&T) for Capella's very first satellite, known as Denali, Todd helped with the design, secured the individual components, made sure they all worked when connected to each other, and kept everything on schedule for the initial demo launch. She even drove the satellite nearly 300 miles from company headquarters in San Francisco to the launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

The successful launch of Denali positioned Capella as the first U.S. company to develop a radar satellite for commercial markets and send it into space. Yes, Todd's name was on it. Her name is on all of them: Denali, Acadia, Sequoia, Whitney. Todd has a little story about that, too.

"When we were designing what would become Denali, a few co-workers and I started saying, 'We should name it after a national park, and then we can have a retreat at that park.' That's how it started."

The biggest hardly-believe-it for Todd is the very fact she's at the innermost hub of satellite advancement. This is the same engineer who wasn't sure if she'd ever fit in.

"My grandfather worked on the space shuttle programs, but growing up I never considered STEM for my own career," Todd says.

She remembers a biology teacher saying she wished could have gone into engineering, and that stuck with Todd.

Little by little, her perspective began to change. During her first week at UCF, she saw flyers for student engineering organization. She went to a kickoff meeting for the free pizza and, to her surprise, was assigned tasks. Instead of having time to reconsider, she found herself helping with workshops and spending time with mentors.

"Being with [people at UCF] who'd been successful in STEM professions helped me see through the imposter syndrome."

At the start of her junior year, her path had become more certain.

"By then, I'd worked in labs and been given some autonomy to fabricate structures during an internship. That's when I realized I'm in the tech realm not because it's easy but because it's where I want to be."

Three years and several steppingstone jobs after graduation, Todd landed with Capella where she's able to combine her interests in art and science to build things.

"Really cool things," she says. "And then I watch them go into space on rockets."

Those are the words she uses when she opens her most meaningful conversations these days - during career fairs at middle schools and high schools, and as a mentor these students.

"It's an easy sell," Todd says, "especially when they imagine putting their own names on those cool things someday."

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