My name is Alex Key, and I'm a rising junior in aerospace engineering at NC State University. I supported the FreeFlyer development team as a software engineering intern in the summer of 2025. I bounced between a couple different projects, including the development of a heat map, parsers for different types of file inputs, and debugging the FreeFlyer scripting language. Working in the software's code-base required me to learn a new coding language that was more complex than those I've worked with in the past, and it also required me to learn how to work in and search through a large number of files. Learning where to start when searching for certain features or who to ask when I'm trying to understand the structure of the program helped accelerate the progress, and I always felt very welcome to ask questions and get to know my coworkers, even if I couldn't meet them face-to-face! Luckily, I did get to meet the other FreeFlyer intern in person since we are a part of the same fellowship.

I think my favorite project was probably the OCM Parser project. Orbital Comprehensive Messages are very extensive files describing the state of an object in orbit. Since my major is in aerospace engineering, a lot of concepts in astrophysics were pretty new to me. It was really interesting to research the different reference frames we use when trying to place objects in space, or what measurements/values we need to use to describe the position and movement of objects. Interpreting large files like OCMs means having to map existing FreeFlyer functionality to specific data stored within, and I really enjoyed bridging the gap between what the file wants us to know and what the software can do with that data. The reason I'm pursuing a computer programming minor is because I want to be able to bridge the gap between software and hardware/mechanical systems in the future, and I feel this internship was the first step in learning how to bridge those kinds of gaps.