Indian American astronaut returns to earth after 9 months in space

NASA

Suni Williams spent 286 days at the International Space Station.

Astronaut Suni Williams was expecting to stay at the International Space Station only a few days. Nine months later the Indian American is back on solid ground along with fellow NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore and cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 completed the agency’s ninth commercial crew rotation mission to the International Space Station on Tuesday, splashing down safely in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, in the Gulf of America.

The four returned to Earth Tuesday (March 18) at 5:57 p.m. EDT. Teams aboard SpaceX recovery vessels retrieved the spacecraft and its crew off the coast of Florida.  After returning to shore, the crew will fly to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and reunite with their families.

“We are thrilled to have Suni, Butch, Nick, and Aleksandr home after their months-long mission conducting vital science, technology demonstrations, and maintenance aboard the International Space Station,” said NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro. “Through preparation, ingenuity, and dedication, we achieve great things together for the benefit of humanity, pushing the boundaries of what is possible from low Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars.”

Williams and Wilmore were selected for the first crewed test flight on Boeing's Starliner and were only supposed to stay at the ISS for 10 days, but when NASA discovered several helium leaks in the spacecraft, NASA decided not to risk the astronauts' lives and sent the vehicle back empty.

Williams was born in Euclid, Ohio, the daughter of Dr. Deepak and Bonnie Pandya. Her father is from Gujarat, India. He studied medicine in the US where he eventualljoined the Euclid department of anatomy at Case Western Reserve University. Her mother, whose maiden name was Bonnie Zalokar, grew up in Northeast Ohio and is of Slovenian descent.

The family moved to Boston in 1966, where her father was able to find work. They lived in Needham, Massachusetts, which Williams said she considers to be her hometown, according to the Times of India. 

NASA

Suni Williams was noted for her hair floating free in the weightless environment.

She graduated from high school there and obtained an undergraduate degree from Annapolis, the US Naval Academy. After graduating as an ensign, she became a Navy test pilot. She also holds a Master of Science in Engineering Management from Florida Institute of Technology.

During her unexpected nine-month space mission, she joined the other astronauts in  conducting experiments in the weightless environment. 

On her 59th birthday on Sept. 19, Williams was able to enjoy Kaju Katli, a popular Indian sweet, sent to her by her sister-in-law via an unmanned supply rocket.

Besides her latest sting in space, Williams was part of two earlier missions. Williams has logged 608 days in space over her three flights, and performed three space walks. She now holds the record for total spacewalking time by a female astronaut, with 62 hours and 6 minutes outside of station, and is fourth on the all-time spacewalk duration list.

The astronauts will undergo a 45-day recovery period as they adjust to Earth's gravity, before returning to their normal duties and reunite with their families.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.

Two Asian Americans to help diversify NASA

NASA

Steve Shih, left and Elaine Ho will champion diversity at the space agency.

Two Asian Americans have been chosen to help bring more diversity to the National Aeronautical Space Administration.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced last month he is taking additional steps forward to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) at the agency.

He named Steve Shih to serve in a new position as the agency’s first Diversity Ambassador and Elaine Ho as the next associate administrator for the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity at NASA Headquarters in Washington, effective immediately.

RELATED: 

•  Meet some of NASA's AAPI astronauts, scientists and engineers
• Space agency highlights AAPIs

“Now, more than ever, NASA is leading all of humanity on an unprecedented journey of discovery, exploration and innovation,” Nelson said. “To be successful in our missions, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility must continue to be at the forefront. Steve and Elaine’s leadership will help NASA continue to ensure our workforce reflects all of America and to inspire partners throughout our nation – for the benefit of all humanity.”

As diversity ambassador, Shih will further NASA’s DEIA initiatives by building key strategic alliances with external partners, enabling NASA to continue being a model agency and leader for DEIA. In this role, Shih will engage NASA’s partners – including across the government, private sector, academia, and non-governmental organizations – to learn and promote best practices for NASA to recruit, hire, engage, and retain the most talented individuals from all backgrounds and life experiences. 

FYI: Learn more about NASA’s Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity 

With his experience leading the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity since 2017, Shih will build on his three decades of federal expertise and help NASA continue to enable everyone to contribute inclusively to NASA and to the United States.

As Shih transitions to the role of diversity ambassador, Ho will bring extensive DEIA expertise to the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity. She most recently has served as the deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement, leading a wide-ranging portfolio of projects benefiting students, universities, and educational institutions across the country to inspire, engage, and educate the Artemis Generation.

Ho previously served as the chief diversity officer for the Department of Agriculture and Internal Revenue Service, as well as currently serving as a senior advisor for DEIA as a colonel in the Air Force Reserve. 

Ho also has held several leadership roles in the White House, including senior policy advisor for former First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let Girls Learn initiative, chief of staff of the United States Digital Service, and deputy chief of staff in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. She recently returned to NASA from the Office of the Vice President’s National Space Council, where she served as director of space STEM policy.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

NASA astronaut Raja Chari performs his first spacewalk at the International Space Station

NASA

Indian American astronaut during his spacewalk at the Internationa Space Station.

NASA astronaut Raja Chari looked down and saw Earth.

Chari performed his first spacewalk at the International Space Station Tuesday (March14).

The 44-year old Indian American and fellow astronaut Kayla Barron secured brackets and erected struts at the base of one of the space station’s eight original power-providing arrays, preparing the area for the future installation of an ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA). 

Their work on the S4 channel of the 3A solar wing deployed the support structure for the third of six new arrays and the first to be added to the starboard side of the space station’s backbone truss. When completed  the arrays will increase the space station's total available power.

NASA

Astronaut Raja Chari awaited for the airlock to open so he could begin his first spacewalk.

The solar arrays soak up the sun’s energy to provide electrical power for the numerous research and science investigations conducted every day, as well as the continued operations of the orbiting platform.

The astronaut duo began the spacewalk at 8:12 a.m. EDT (1212 GMT) as they switched their spacesuits to internal battery power. They completed their portion of the task in almost seven hours.

Chari was selected by NASA to join the 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class. He reported for duty in August 2017.

The Iowa native graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1999 with a bachelor’s degrees in Astronautical Engineering and Engineering Science. He continued on to earn a master’s degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School.

He is currently serving as commander of the NASA SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the ISS, which launched on November 10, 2021.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and tips from an AAPI perspective, follow me on Twitter @DioknoEd.

AAPI scientists and engineers are among NASA's Martians who worked on Preserverance's Mars landing

Peseverance will look for signs of life on Mars.

Hollywood's version of NASA is so different from reality. For an agency that has long been depicted in movies, TV shows and in its own landing broadcasts as being predominantly built by white men, the Perseverance control room provided a striking new look for the National Aeronautics Space Agency.

The U.S. landing a rover on Mars last week could not have happened without the AAPI scientists and rengineers who have worked on the project.

In recent years, NASA has come a long way from its first diverse class of astronauts in 1978. On Feb. 18, many in the team of engineers that guided Perseverance on its journey were women and people of color. And most have worked for a decade to pull it off.

Swati Mohan

It was hard to miss Swati Mohan, an Indian American scientist in the front row, with a bindi on her forehead, who became the face of the Mars mission. She was the scientist who exclaimed, "Touchdown confirmed!" when the rover landed on the red planet's surface.

Mohan has been part of the Mars 2020 mission since it began in 2013. She explained to viewers the rover's mission milestones. She was the guidance, navigation and controls operations lead.

"Perseverance will be the first mission to use Terrain-Relative Navigation,” Mohan explained to KRTV. “While it’s descending on the parachute, it will actually be taking images of the surface of Mars and determining where to go based on what it sees. This is finally like landing with your eyes open. Having this new technology really allows Perseverance to land in much more challenging terrain than Curiosity, or any previous Mars mission, could." 

Mohan is an aerospace engineer and the Guidance and Controls Operations Lead responsible for Perseverance. Mohan was tasked to ensure the spacecraft that carried the rover was properly oriented during its travel and upon its landing on Mars, according to her NASA profile. 

She has also worked as an engineer on multiple other NASA missions, to Saturn and the moon.

SWATI MOHAN

NASA recognizes the value of diversity. 

"Diversity is a hallmark of NASA – after all, we wouldn’t be the agency we are without it." Clayton Turner, the first Black director of NASA’s Langley Research Center in a  February statement. 

Still, NASA has catching up to do on diversity: Recent employment numbers show 72% of NASA employees are white, with 12% Black, 7% Asian American, 8% Latino and 1% American Indian. Meanwhile, only 34% of NASA employees are women.

Allen Chen

Also working at JPL alongside Mohan is Chinese American systems engineer Allen Chen, who is currently the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) Lead for the Mars 2020 project. As part of his role in the project, he co-led the joint science/engineering Mars atmosphere characterization team.

According to his bio profile on NASA, Chen conducted a number of advanced studies looking at landing capabilities, including opportunities such as Mars Sample Return architectures. During a NASA media briefing last month, Chen explained that the spacecraft carrying the Perseverance rover will have to "slow from down to supersonic speeds using a 70-foot diameter parachute while still traveling at almost twice the speed of sound."

“Entry, descent and landing is the most critical and most dangerous part of the mission. Success is never assured. And that’s especially true when we’re trying to land the biggest heaviest and most complicated rover we’ve ever built,” Chen was quoted as saying.

Pauline Hwang

Pauline Hwang, who has worked for JPL for over 15 years, is the Strategic Mission Manager for Mars 2020 Surface Operations, according to her NASA profile. Hwang has previously worked on the Dawn Project, which studied the protoplanets of the asteroid belt, the prior Mars rover missions — Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity — and, most recently, a Martian lander project called InSight, which reached the planet in 2018.

In an interview with LA Parent, Hwang shared her experience in the space industry. "When I started working at JPL, it did not bother me that there were more males than females," she was quoted as saying. "My biggest challenge/epiphany was realizing that everyone, including me, has this internal unconscious bias of who could make a good manager (you automatically picture similar people who are currently managers) and how certain genders should behave in meetings. For example, it is accepted for a man to be loud, short and direct, but for a woman it can be poorly received and considered too blunt."

Ny Sou Okon

Ny Sou Okon is a Cambodian American flight system engineer who helped build the Perseverance rover alongside others at JPL, including her husband, who is also an engineer. Before she was born, Okon's family fled to Vietnam from their home in Cambodia to escape the Khmer Rouge, according to Press-Telegram. In 1984, when she was only 5 or 6, the family arrived in Texas. Her family eventually settled in Long Beach, where many Cambodians now live. She later went on to graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering at UCLA.

Gregorio Villar III

Filipino American systems engineer Gregorio Villar III, who is head verification and validation engineer for the EDL phase of Perseverance, helped build and test a system that would land a car-sized rover on Mars. Villar also led an international council of atmospheric scientists to characterize the Martian atmosphere, according to PNA. Villar, who was awarded a NASA scholarship in his junior year of college, started his internship at JPL in 2010 and was hired full-time in 2012.

More AAPI scientists and engineers will continue the exploration of Mars through Preserverance. See who they are.

The team behind Perseverance. Zoom in.

Two Asian American astronauts join the team heading to the moon

NASA

The 18 astronauts aiming for the moon.

NASA has selected 18 astronauts from its corps to form the Artemis Team and help pave the way for the next astronaut missions on and around the Moon as part of the Artemis program.

Among the astronauts chosen for his mission are two Asian Americans: Air Force Col. Raja Jon Vurputoor Chari and Navy Seal Jonny Kim. They were among the NASA graduates who have successfully completed their over two years of basic astronaut training in 2019.

Two members of this team are expected to become the first American man and woman to return to the moon since 1972. The first Artemis mission – an uncrewed test mission known as Artemis 1 – is still expected to launch in November 2021. The Artemis program aims to carry humans back to the moon and eventually onwards to Mars.

Vice President Mike Pence introduced the 18 members of the Artemis Team last week (Dec. 9) during the eighth National Space Council meeting at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

“I give you the heroes who will carry us to the Moon and beyond – the Artemis Generation,” said Vice President Mike Pence. “It is amazing to think that the next man and first woman on the Moon are among the names that we just read. The Artemis Team astronauts are the future of American space exploration – and that future is bright."

RELATED: 8 Asian American women making a difference at NASA

The agency’s modern lunar exploration program will land the first woman and next man on the Moon in 2024 and establish a sustainable human lunar presence by the end of the decade.

Although 2024 is the target year for mankind to once again set foot on the moon, that deadline, set by the Trump administration, may be difficult to meet because funding has not been approved by Congress.

“We are in the midst of negotiating to get that lander funded,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told the Space Council during an update on the Artemis program. “This has to be generational in nature, which means strong bipartisan support is necessary.

“But ultimately, if we don’t get the (requested) $3.3 billion, it gets more and more difficult. … If there’s anything you can do to help with the $3.3 billion, we are certainly asking for that.”

NASA will announce flight assignments for astronauts later, pulling from the Artemis Team. Additional Artemis Team members, including international partner astronauts, will join this group, as needed.

“We are incredibly grateful for the president and vice president’s support of the Artemis program, as well as the bipartisan support for all of NASA’s science, aeronautics research, technology development, and human exploration goals,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “As a result, we’re excited to share this next step in exploration – naming the Artemis Team of astronauts who will lead the way, which includes the first woman and next man to walk on the lunar surface.”

The astronauts of the Artemis Team will help NASA prepare for the coming Artemis missions, which begin next year working with the agency’s commercial partners as they develop human landing systems; assisting in the development of training; defining hardware requirements; and consulting on technical development. They also will engage the public and industry on the Artemis program and NASA’s exploration plans.

The Artemis astronauts come from a diverse range of backgrounds, expertise, and experience. 

As the son of immigrants, The 33-year old Kim, who is also a medical doctor, wants to "inspire the next generation of children who don't have the confidence, to dream, like I did."

Test pilot Chari, 44, is also looking forward to help youngsters achieve their dream. "Newton talks about standing on the shoulders of giants ... I'm definitely not a giant, but if I can throw out a stepping stone out there, that would be my goal."

Two AAPI astronauts shoot for the moon ... or Mars

NASA PHOTOS

New astronauts Raja Jon Vurputoor Chari, left, and Jonny Kim.

Among the United States' newest astronauts are two Asian Americans: Korean American Jonny Kim and Indian American Raja Jon Vurputoor Chari.

The two Asian Americans were among the 11 new NASA graduates who have successfully completed their over two years of basic astronaut training and are all set to be part of space agency's future missions to the International Space Station, the moon and Mars.

The 11 were selected from the program from 18,000 applicants in 2017 after the US space agency announced its Artimis program.

"2020 will mark the return of launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil, and will be an important year of progress for our Artemis program and missions to the Moon and beyond," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine last week at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Chari, the Indian American US Air Force colonel, earned a master's degree in aeronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland.

Chari 41, served as the commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and the director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Inspired by his father Srinivas Chari, who came to US at a young age from Hyderabad, for engineering degree, with the goal of getting higher education. 

The Milwaukee-born Chari earned a bachelor’s degree in Astronautical Engineering from the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. Earned a master’s degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland. Graduated from US Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.Kim, 35, is the first Korean American to complete the astronaut program. A graduate of the Harvard Medical School, Kim is also a US Navy Seal.

"My parents were South Korean immigrants who came to America in the early 80s for the hope of a better life for their children," Kim said in a 2017 interview with NASA.

Graduating from Harvard Medical School and being a part of the Navy SEALs must not have been enough accomplishments for Jonny Kim. 

After he graduated high school in Los Angeles, Kim joined the Navy as a Seaman recruit, which eventually led him to obtain the elite military status of a Navy SEAL. He served as a combat medic, sniper, and navigator on more than 100 combat operations across two deployments to the Middle East, NASA said.

At the time of his astronaut selection in June 2017, Kim was a resident physician in emergency medicine with Partners Healthcare at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Kim remains on active duty as a Navy Lieutenant at NASA.

"These individuals represent the best of America, and what an incredible time for them to join our astronaut corps," Bridenstine said.

SUNDAY READ: A giant leap for womankind, 8 Asian Americans making a difference in NASA

By Teena Apeles

REPRINTED BY PERMISSION / KCET

For every person and vehicle that NASA has launched beyond Earth’s atmosphere, there have been numerous women on the ground who made those journeys possible. Women of Asian descent are among them, some of whom made remarkable journeys themselves from across the globe to come to support these important missions. 

Their numbers at NASA continue to grow at an inspiring pace, doubling from 1992 to 2015. The following women are just a fraction of the Asian Americans whose remarkable work continues to impact the investigation of worlds beyond our own.

Kalpana Chawla
Astronaut

The story of an Indian-born woman becoming an American astronaut is an incredible one, and Chawla’s tragic death on February 1, 2003, when Space Shuttle Columbia exploded during re-entry, killing all seven crew members, is also a reminder of the dangers each person willing to make the journey faces. (Her life was one marked by numerous accomplishments: multiple pilot licenses; degrees from Punjab Engineering College, University of Texas, and University of Colorado; and many important research and development contributions. She credited her father for supporting her love of aviation at an early age.

It was in December 1994 that she was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA, and after serving in different roles on the ground, including testing software for space shuttle control, by November 1997, Chawla was on the Space Shuttle Columbia headed for a 16-day mission. One of her jobs was to operate the shuttle’s robotic arm. According to NASA, the total time she spent in space, over the course of the two missions, was 30 days, 14 hours and 54 minutes.

After returning from her first mission, Chawla was asked by India Today how she felt about becoming the first Indian woman in space: “I never truly thought of being the first or second someone. Or being a small-town girl. This is just something I wanted to do,” she told the reporter. “It was very important for me to enjoy it. If you want to do something, what does it matter where you are ranked? Nor does being a woman make a difference.”

MiMi Aung
Project Manager for the Mars Helicopter

Burmese-born Aung is very familiar with uncharted territory. She tackles it as part of her job: overseeing the building of a helicopter to fly on another planet. “What I find most rewarding and challenging about the work I do is the chance to develop never-been-done-before autonomous systems for space exploration,” she shared by email. The miniature 4-pound, solar-powered Mars Helicopter is designed to fly for up to 90 seconds and is scheduled to travel with the Mars 2020 rover. And when it attempts to fly on the Red Planet in 2021 (and hopefully succeeds) it will solidify her place in the history books.

Being a trailblazer is very much in Aung’s blood: her mother was the first woman in Myanmar to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics and the first woman from Myanmar to receive a Ph.D. from the United States. Her inherited love for mathematics led her to engineering and a desire to explore space. Landing an interview at JPL in 1990 was a dream for Aung because it’s “the place for first-of-a-kind missions — missions that nobody has done before — to get the kinds of science that we’ve never gotten,” she shared in an interview on its site. “I remember telling one of the interview managers, ‘I can do this, I could do that …’ And he made a comment saying, ‘Gee, you’re like a kid in a candy store.’” Now at JPL for three decades, that feeling has not subsided for Aung, but perhaps even heightened as she awaits the launch of Mars 2020 rover next summer.

Jie Gong
Research Atmospheric Scientist / Climate and Radiation Branch, Earth Science Division

As an atmospheric scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, Gong uses satellite data to study frozen precipitation (such as ice clouds, hail, and snow) in the atmosphere. “Part of my work is to understand where and when these frozen particles in the air will fall to the ground,” Gong said in a 2018 NASA interview. Originally from southern China, she was inspired by the work of her scientist uncle who studied air and water pollution.

After getting her Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences from State University of New York at Stonybrook, her advisors brought her to Goddard. One of them was Dong L. Wu, who researches remote sensing of clouds from space at Goddard and continues to be her mentor and supervisor. Together, they wrote a paper presenting a new approach to calculating atmospheric ice orientation that was honored with the 2017 Goddard Earth Science Division Best Senior Author Publication award.

Her advice to those who wish to follow in her footsteps? “I really think a scientist needs to be open-minded and not just focused on his or her own specialty,” she said. “If not, you will run out of ideas one day.”

Pooja Joshi Jesrani
Flight Director

An alumna of University of Texas at Austin’s Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics program, Jesrani was born in England and immigrated to the U.S. as a child. She is the first female South Asian to serve as flight director and is currently the only minority female in the role. Only 14 women have ever held this position, according to Jesrani, which is significantly fewer than even the total number of women who have traveled to space. (59 have.)

“Both the most rewarding and challenging thing about being a flight director at NASA is working with the massive team that supports the International Space Station,” Jesrani shared. “The Mission Control Center is just the tip of the iceberg. With our 15 international partners and all the engineering and support teams back in their offices, we are a team of thousands. While there are many stakeholders, crew safety, vehicle safety and mission success are our primary objectives. As challenging as it is sometimes to come to a consensus, the greater achievement of flying astronauts to the space station and completing critical science and maintenance over the last 20 years is something to be proud of!”

Mamta Patel Nagaraja
Science Program Manager, Science Engagement and Partnerships Division
NASA Science Mission Directorate

Hailing from the town of San Angelo, Texas, Patel started her career at NASA in 2001 as a cooperative education student and went on to serve in many roles all over the country in the organization: flight controller and astronaut instructor at Johnson Space Center in Houston, space policy analyst and Women@NASA project manager at its headquarters in Washington, D.C., and instrument operations and lead mechanical engineer at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

“I believe in the power of knowledge, of discovering, of exploring,” Patel said, whose passion for space developed as a child. Back then she may not have noticed glass ceilings being shattered, but now she can look around and see that women, including herself, are playing considerable roles within the organization, including as leaders. Patel is proud to have supported two science missions (including LADEE- Lunar Atmosphere Dust and Environment Explorer), trained astronauts for the Space Shuttle and International Space Station, and shared her journey in a TEDx talk. “It gives me hope and confidence to see the many women, some who even look like me, in positions to further NASA’s mission considerably. I do think we have much work to do in STEM fields, but progress is evident.”

The fact that Patel has been at NASA for almost two decades is a clear indicator that she loves her work. The organization also strives to bring different perspectives into the fold: “There are many leaders in this wonderful agency who yearn to diversify the table, so to speak,” she said. ”They value diverse opinions, and more than that, they understand that diverse teams mean diverse ways of tackling the toughest of problems, which ultimately yields the best solution.”

Lien Pham
“Spacecraft Dressmaker,” Flight Technicians Service 

The self-described “spacecraft dressmaker” at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena was born in Vietnam. When her family settled in Los Angeles in the late ’70s, she found a job making lingerie. Little did she know that her sewing skills and night classes in soldering and cabling at a trade school would lead her to support missions to Mars. That cabling skill alone landed her a job working on terrestrial vehicles and space satellites.

It was in in 2000, with a friend’s encouragement, that she applied for a job at JPL working with protective thermal blankets. Fast-forward almost two decades later, and she is still at it, designing and producing an important component in spacecraft assembly. “A thermal blanket has to provide just the right amount of heat — not too much and not too little — for the spacecraft to operate correctly,” Pham shared in a 2016 interview. And creating them is no small feat, involving various layers of material, including Mylar and Kapton film, Dacron netting, Teflon, and Beta cloth, each serving a specific function. She added that a career at JPL is not out of reach; her journey is proof of this. “It’s never too late to learn and take classes. There are a lot of people at JPL who didn’t start in science or engineering, but almost all of them have the drive to learn new skills or search for training.”

Josephine Santiago-Bon

Systems Engineer and Head of the Advanced Engineering Development Branch

Born in the U.S. and educated in the Philippines through college, Santiago-Bond started at NASA as a graduate intern at John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida in 2004. Since then she has been involved in space-shuttle and ground-system operations and the development of new technologies there, as well as working on the LADEE lunar missions at Ames Research Center and Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatiles Extraction (RESOLVE) at KSC.

Santiago-Bond actually created the branch she now heads — consisting of more than 20 engineers and three interns.“The most challenging aspect of my job as a supervisor is discerning what drives my individual employees to become more engaged, and make adjustments in my behaviors to facilitate this,” she shared via email, noting that seeing them thrive professionally and personally is the reward. “The icing on the cake is receiving the gift of their feedback, which in itself is a great indicator of employee engagement.” And Santiago-Bond is grateful for NASA for being just as receptive to hers over the years. “I always feel that I am valued,” she told Asian Journal in a recent interview, “not only for my engineering and leadership skills but also as an Asian American and as a Filipina American, who brings a unique set of experiences and ideas to the table every day.”

Mia Siochi
Senior Research Materials Engineer

Materials that can heal themselves and humans are not just science fiction. Siochi is hard at work using nanotechnology to develop durable, self-healing lightweight material for space vessels, and is one of the inventors of polyvinylidene fluoride, a kind of polymer gauze that aids in healing human flesh when electrically charged. “As a researcher working on emerging materials technologies, it is most rewarding to participate in discovery of new materials and understanding how they can be used to overcome challenges that NASA has in its aeronautics, space exploration, and science missions,” shared Siochi, who was born and raised in the Philippines, before moving to the U.S. for graduate school. “Work is never boring, because I’m always learning new things and growing as a person, as I work with other researchers from the many disciplines needed for NASA to carry out its mission.”

She joined Langley Research Center in 1990 and one of her other projects included creating and testing numerous nonstick wing coatings to prevent insect residue and increase fuel efficiency. “What is challenging in the work that I do is that we are generally tackling problems with no easy answers,” she added, “but that is also what is most rewarding because gaining knowledge helps enable new capabilities and understanding of this wonderful world that we live in.”

To learn more about the women at NASA making strides in science, mathematics, engineering, and, yes, space, visit women.nasa.gov and women.jpl.nasa.gov.

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Meet NASA's AAPI astronauts, engineers, space station commanders and other employees

Just in time for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, NASA has created a fantastic website featuring the scores of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who are working or have worked with the agency. in every capacity,  from astronauts, flight directors, engineers and more.

It includes the first Asian American into space, astronaut Ellison Onizuka, and mission specialist Daniel M. Tani, who is currently on the international space station.

The number of AAPI working at the space agency might not surprise a lot of people but they are a reminder at how much immigrants and the children of immigrants continue to contribute to this country's next great adventure. 

Click here to get to the NASA website.

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