Debbie Korth received the NASA 2025 Engineer of the Year Award from the National Society of Professional Engineers at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Image courtesy of Debbie Korth <\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Korth said she was shocked to receive the award. \u201cAt NASA there are so many brilliant, talented engineers who I get to work with every day who are so specialized and know so much about a certain area,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was very surprising, but very appreciated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Korth has dedicated more than 30 years of her career to NASA, supporting human spaceflight development, integration, and operations across the Space Shuttle, International Space Station, and Orion Programs. Her earliest roles involved extravehicular and mission operations planning, as well as managing spaceflight hardware for shuttle missions and space station crews. Working on hardware such as the Crew Health Care System in the early days of space station planning and development was a unique experience for Korth.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
After spending significant time in Russia collaborating with Russian counterparts to integrate equipment such as a treadmill, cycle ergometer, and blood pressure monitor into their module, Korth recalled, \u201cWhen we finally got that all delivered and integrated, it was a huge step because we had to have all of that on board before we could put crew members on the station for the first time. I remember feeling a huge sense of accomplishment and happiness that we were able to work through this international partnership and forge those relationships to get that hardware integrated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Korth transitioned to the Orion Program in 2008 and has since served in a variety of leadership roles. In her current role, Korth assists the program manager in the design, development, testing, verification, and certification of Orion, NASA\u2019s next-generation, human-rated spacecraft for Artemis missions. The spacecraft\u2019s first flight test around the Moon during the Artemis I mission was a standout experience for Korth and a major accomplishment for the Orion team.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a long mission and every day we were learning more and more about the spacecraft and pushing boundaries,\u201d she said. \u201cWe really wrung out some of the core systems \u2013 systems that were developed individually and for the first time we got to see them work together.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Korth said that understanding how different systems interact with each other is what she loves most about engineering. \u201cIn systems engineering, you really look at how changes to and the performance of one system affects everything else,\u201d she said. \u201cI like looking across the entire spacecraft and saying, if I have to strengthen this structure to take some additional landing loads, that\u2019s going to add mass to the vehicle, which means I have to look at my parachutes and the thermal protection system to make sure they can handle that increased load.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Orion team is working to achieve two major milestones in 2025 \u2013 delivery of the Artemis II Orion spacecraft to the Exploration Ground Systems team that will fuel and integrate Orion with its launch abort system at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center, and the spacecraft\u2019s integration with the Space Launch System rocket, which is currently being stacked. These milestones will support the launch of the first crewed mission on NASA\u2019s path to establishing a long-term presence at the Moon for science and exploration, with liftoff targeted no earlier than April 2026. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a big year,\u201d said Korth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The National Society of Professional Engineers recently named Debbie Korth, Orion deputy program manager at Johnson Space Center, as NASA\u2019s 2025 Engineer of the Year. Korth was recognized during an award ceremony at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 21, alongside honorees from 17 other federal agencies. The annual awards program honors [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15634,15661,15662],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-johnson-space-center","category-orion-program","category-people-of-johnson"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=182333"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182452,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182333\/revisions\/182452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=182333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=182333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=182333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Orion](\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/award-ceremony-pic.jpg\")
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