By Richard Tew
Correspondent for The Post Newspaper
Recently, NASA/JSC created a new position “Flight Operations Directorate Transformation Manager.” JSC veteran, Canadian-born Dr. Laura Lucier will helm this new position, which will help plot the future course for NASA and its commercial partners as both work together to explore our closest celestial neighbors.
Lucier says her path to the space program started when she was a child.
“I think a lot of human space flight nerds, I wanted to be an astronaut,” said Lucier. “I decided at a very early age, since I was a six-year-old girl, that was what I wanted to do. Even at that young age, I was the type of person who was always attracted to the challenge. I wanted to do the hardest thing.”
Her interest in tackling challenges and solving problems led Lucier towards pursuing a career in the space program.
“As a little kid, the challenge of exploration, the pedestal we put astronauts on, the stereotype of human space flight being difficult and risky and hard and something that attracted and demanded the best of ourselves and society were all things that appealed to me,” said Lucier. “I wanted to challenge myself and see how far I could go. What difficult thing would finally break me? What’s the hardest thing I can do? I think that’s what appealed to me, that sense of adventure and the challenge that went with it.”
After high school, Lucier would then go on to earn a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, then a masters in aerospace engineering. She says her research focused on how materials degrade in low earth orbit, something valuable to space exploration given the harsh environment only a couple hundred miles from earth’s surface. In 2020, she went back to school and earned her PhD in Mechanical Engineering.
During that time, Lucier was part of a team assisting with the launch and installation of the “Canadarm 2” robotic arm. The robotic arm was affixed to the ISS to aid construction and facilitate upgrades to the space station. It was during this time she was offered the opportunity to become a flight controller at JSC.
“I couldn’t say no to that opportunity,” said Lucier. “That’s what ultimately brought me down here.”
Lucier lauds the collaboration between the different space agencies while working together for a common goal.
“We have an integrated team,” said Lucier. “We have Canadian flight controllers and American flight controllers working together to control the extravehicular robots on the International Space Station.”
After 13 years working for JSC through the CSA, Lucier was offered a flight controller position as a civil servant with NASA.
During her 22 years at JSC, Lucier has worked as a lead flight controller before entering management as a deputy director of different divisions before being selected for her current role within the agency.
Lucier says the Artemis program and its related space vehicles for future exploration projects for the Moon and eventually Mars. She says they will be operated in a “much different way than the existing legacy space programs like the ISS.”
“They are much more active joint partnerships with commercial parties/commercial vendors,” said Lucier. “We need to define how we are going to work in this new environment. We recognize there are some opportunities here for us to refine how we perform flight control and how our organization is set up to serve these new programs.”
As the ISS program winds down in the coming years, Lucier says there will be a need to utilize support staff on new projects which will gradually replace the aging space station.
“That’s a huge organizational challenge,” said Lucier. “That’s what my new job is, to help the flight operations directorate figure out some of the frameworks and approaches we can take to make that happen.”
Cutline: NASA/JSC’s Laura Lucier was recently selected to fill the new role of “Flight Operations Directorate Transformation Manager.” Photo courtesy of NASA.
When he’s not writing about NASA, Richard Tew teaches Irish dance to students of all ages in Clear Lake and League City. Learn more at www.tewirishdance.wordpress.com.
