Originally from Lawrence County working on a space mission

As NASA prepares to launch the U.S. space program and the Artemis I mission to return humans to the moon, the Lawrence County man is one of many who have helped make the project a reality.

Breana Staton, a 2017 graduate of Dawson Bryant High School, works as a Ground Integration Engineer in Space Agency Systems Engineering and Integration.

The daughter of Crystal and Mike Staton, she says her interest in her field dates back to her sophomore year of high school, attending the Young Women Lead conference in Ashland, Kentucky.

“We had women talking and giving presentations about different career tracks,” says Staton.

Breanna Staton at Launch Complex 39-B at NASA Kennedy Space Center where a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is launched from above a mobile launcher. (Submitted photo)

She said representatives from Morehead State University, which she will eventually attend, were there.

“They were talking about space systems plans,” she said. “It was really cool.”

Staton, who took Project Lead the Way STEM classes and college credit courses at Dawson-Bryant, said English and reading were her favorite subjects in high school and plans to major in English education at Morehead.

But during her first few years, she said, she decided to change her major to space systems engineering after hearing about a space systems program that had been running at the university for about 20 years.

“I started thinking about changing my major after the open house in the summer of 2017, when I saw the Space Science Building and remembered a talk I gave at the YWL conference,” she said.

In early summer 2020, Staten said he applied to 15 internships at NASA but hadn’t heard from him for several weeks.

Then, on the same day that NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine visited Morehead for a talk, Staton received an email from her future mentor, Abdiel Santos Galindo, to sign up for an internship. .

Her internship was due to start in the summer of 2020, shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic and associated shutdowns occurred.

“I panicked about what to do,” Staton said. “But they were able to find a way.”

Working away from Ironton, she was part of a team dedicated to the John F. Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida, for the Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) program, a stacked and tested program. specialized in the technology, management and innovation of and the Space Her Launch Her System (SLS) for the Artemis I mission is about to launch.

Artemis takes place in three phases. The first follow-on launches will include unmanned testing of the Artemis and Orion capsules, delivery into lunar orbit, and return of the capsules to Earth. Artemis II is a manned mission that will include Earth orbital testing, lunar orbital travel, Earth re-entry and water landing.

An artist rendering of the Constellation program lunar lander (left) and space capsule that will be part of the Artemis mission. (illustration by NASA)

Artemis III is a manned landing, made possible by a team of four astronauts first docking a human landing system to the Orion capsule. The system will be placed in orbit around the Moon by an advance support mission. From there, two crew members will transfer to the HLS and land on the moon. HLS later returns to the Orion capsule to return all astronauts to Earth.

According to Staton, the Kennedy Space Center team, including the interns, identified areas that need improvement across the agency, including capability gaps in low losses, highly efficient cryogenic transfer and storage, and flame and leak detection and mitigation. The goal, she said, is to make things “more efficient, cheaper, safer and more reliable.”

After an internship, Stayton graduated from Morehead in 2021. From there, she returned to her NASA, working remotely as well as working for Kennedy for the Artemis II mission and beyond.

She said she could see the next Artemis I launch in person and invited her friends to come see it.

While at Morehead, Staton said her program at school partnered with NASA Goddard on the Luna Ice Cube satellite, one of the smaller CubeSats to be deployed from the Orion capsule approaching the moon. The satellite will carry out observations and experiments for future deep space missions. Now, in her work at NASA, Staton is once again part of the Artemis I team.

“It’s been really cool and completely come full circle,” she said.

Speaking about the first mission to return to the moon since the Apollo program ended half a century ago in 1972, Staton said it was based on “great progress” in the decades that followed.

“Apollo proved we can go to the moon,” she said. “Now we can build a sustainable presence.”

Morgan Harrison, a 2016 Dawson Bryant School graduate, displays CubeSat during a visit to Aaron Watson’s class at a district high school in 2018. (submitted photo)

This includes plans for onsite resource utilization on the moon, with or without a crew, she said.

“We can live and work in another world for longer periods of time,” she said, adding that this will be key to the eventual mission to Mars.

In addition to Staton, another person from Lawrence County is working on the Artemis mission.

Morgan Harrison graduated from Dawson-Bryant in 2016 and also joined Morehead State as part of the Space Systems Program. After graduating, she worked in Utah and returned to Kentucky.Her work focuses primarily on mission safety.

Staton said her experience has led her to tell others that “regardless of your background, you can pursue any career path you choose.”

Anyone can be a “NASA engineer, artist, teacher, educator,” she said.

“And you shouldn’t limit yourself just because you’re from a small town,” she said.

Artemis I was originally scheduled to launch last weekend, but it has now been delayed as the team works to replace the seal on the interface between the rocket and launcher.

A new release date is likely to take place in the coming weeks.