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Loss of Vega flight VV17: Independent Enquiry Commission announces conclusions
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
By Beth Ridgeway
NASA’s Student Launch competition celebrated its 25th anniversary on May 4, just north of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, bringing together more than 980 middle school, high school, college, and university students from across the U.S. to showcase and launch their high-powered rocketry designs.
The event marked the conclusion of the nine-month challenge where teams designed, built, and launched more than 50 rockets carrying scientific payloads—trying to achieve altitudes between 4,000 and 6,000 feet before executing a successful landing and payload mission.
“This is really about mirroring the NASA engineering design process,” Kevin McGhaw, director of NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement Southeast Region, said. “It gives students hands-on experience not only in building and designing hardware, but in the review and testing process. We are helping to prepare and inspire students to get out of classroom and into the aerospace industry as a capable and energizing part of our future workforce.”
NASA announced James Madison University as the overall winner of the agency’s 2025 Student Launch challenge, followed by North Carolina State University, and The University of Alabama in Huntsville. A complete list of challenge winners can be found on the agency’s Student Launch webpage.
Participants from James Madison University – the overall winner of the 2025 NASA Student Launch competition – stand around their team’s high-powered rocket as it sits on the pad before launching on May 4 event. NASA/Krisdon Manecke Each year, a payload challenge is issued to the university teams, and this year’s task took inspiration from the agency’s Artemis missions, where NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefit, and to build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars. Teams were challenged to include sensor data from STEMnauts, non-living objects representing astronauts. The STEMnaut “crew” had to relay real-time data to the student team’s mission control, just as the Artemis astronaut crew will do as they explore the lunar surface.
Student Launch is one of NASA’s seven Artemis Student Challenges – activities that connect student ingenuity with NASA’s work returning to the Moon under Artemis in preparation for human exploration of Mars.
The competition is managed by Marshall’s Office of STEM Engagement. Additional funding and support are provided by the Office of STEM Engagement’s Next Generation STEM project, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the agency’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, Northrup Grumman, National Space Club Huntsville, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Association of Rocketry, Relativity Space, and Bastion Technologies Inc.
To watch the full virtual awards ceremony, please visit NASA Marshall’s YouTube channel.
For more information about Student Launch, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/nasa-student-launch/
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Last Updated Jun 16, 2025 EditorBeth RidgewayLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By NASA
Dr. Natasha Schatzman Receives Vertical Flight Society (VFS) Award
The Forum 81 award was presented to Natasha Schatzman (center), with the award given by the parents of Alex Stoll, Mark and Lyn Stoll, and flanked by VFS Chair of the Board Harry Nahatis (left) and VFS Executive Director Angelo Collins (right). Source: https://gallery.vtol.org/image/AloOB. Photo Credit: Warren Liebmann In May 2025, Dr. Natasha Schatzman, aerospace engineer in the Aeromechanics Office at NASA Ames Research Center, received the inaugural Alex M. Stoll Award from the Vertical Flight Society (VFS). This award honors a professional in the field of vertical flight who “demonstrates an exceptional commitment to advancing not only the mission of their organization but makes extraordinary contributions to enhancing the well-being and happiness of their colleagues.” Dr. Schatzman began her career at Ames in 2008 as a student intern while simultaneously completing her undergraduate studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). She stayed at Georgia Tech through graduate school and finished her Ph.D. dissertation in 2018 in the Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering Department. Currently, Dr. Schatzman is focusing on assessments of rotorcraft performance and aeroacoustics through experimentation and modeling at Ames Research Center. The Alex M. Stoll Award is the second time she has been honored by the VFS. In 2023, Dr. Schatzman received the François-Xavier Bagnoud Vertical Flight Award which is given to a member “who is 35 years old or younger for their career-to-date outstanding contributions to vertical flight technology.” More information on Dr. Schatzman’s 2025 award is at: https://vtol.org/awards-and-contests/vertical-flight-society-award-winners?awardID=28
About the Author
Osvaldo R. Sosa Valle
Osvaldo Sosa is a dedicated and detail-oriented project coordinator at NASA Ames Research Center, where he supports operations for the Aeronautics Directorate. He is part of the Strategic Communications Team and serves as managing editor for the Aeronautics topic on the NASA website. With experience in event coordination, logistics, and stakeholder engagement, Osvaldo brings strong organizational and communication skills to every project. He is passionate about driving innovation, fostering strong leadership, and streamlining operations to enhance team collaboration and organizational impact.
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Last Updated Jun 06, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
NASA Nearly all of NASA’s ninth class of astronaut candidates, along with two European trainees, poses for photos in the briefing room in the public affairs facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on July 7, 1980.
Group 9 was announced on May 29, 1980; the candidates would go on to make history in spaceflight and at NASA. For example, Charles Bolden (kneeling at far right) traveled to orbit four times aboard the space shuttle between 1986 and 1994, then became the agency’s first African American administrator in 2009. Franklin Chang-Diaz (fifth from the right, standing) was the first Hispanic American to fly in space and Jerry Ross (middle, standing in the back) was the first person to be launched into space seven times.
Image credit: NASA
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By NASA
Megan Harvey is a utilization flight lead and capsule communicator, or capcom, in the Research Integration Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. She integrates science payload constraints related to vehicles’ launch and landing schedules. She is also working to coordinate logistics for the return of SpaceX vehicles to West Coast landing sites.
Read on to learn about Harvey’s career with NASA and more!
Megan Harvey talking to a flight director from the Remote Interface Officer console in the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. NASA/Mark Sowa Johnson Space Center is home to the best teams, both on and off the planet!
Megan Harvey
Utilization Flight Lead and Capsule Communicator
Where are you from?
I am from Long Valley, New Jersey.
How would you describe your job to family or friends who may not be familiar with NASA?
Many biological experiments conducted on the space station have specific time constraints, including preparation on the ground and when crew interacts with them on orbit. I help coordinate and communicate those kinds of constraints within the International Space Station Program and with the scientific community. This is especially important because launch dates seldom stay where they are originally planned! I am also currently working in a cross-program team coordinating the logistics for the return to West Coast landings of SpaceX vehicles.
As a capcom, I’m the position in the Mission Control Center in Houston that talks to the crew. That would be me responding to someone saying, “Houston, we have a problem!”
I’ve worked in the Research Integration Office since the beginning of 2024 and have really enjoyed the change of pace after 11 years in the Flight Operations Directorate, where I supported several different consoles for the International Space Station. I’ve kept my capcom certification since 2021, and it is an absolute dream come true every time I get to sit in the International Space Station Flight Control Room. Johnson Space Center is home to the best teams, both on and off the planet!
How long have you been working for NASA?
I have been working for the agency for 13 years.
What advice would you give to young individuals aspiring to work in the space industry or at NASA?
Some things that I have found that helped me excel are:
1. Practice: I am surprised over and over again how simply practicing things makes you better at them, but it works!
2. Preparation: Don’t wing things!
3. Curiosity: Keep questioning!
4. Enthusiasm!
Megan Harvey and friends after biking 25 miles to work. What was your path to NASA?
I had a very circuitous path to NASA. Since going to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, when I was 10 years old, I wanted to be a capcom and work for NASA. I also traveled to Russia in high school and loved it. I thought working on coordination between the Russian and U.S. space programs would be awesome. In pursuit of those dreams, I earned a bachelor’s degree in physics with a minor in Russian language from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, but I had so much fun also participating in music extracurriculars that my grades were not quite up to the standards of working at NASA. After graduation, I worked at a technology camp for a summer and then received a research assistant position in a neuroscience lab at Princeton University in New Jersey.
After a year or so, I realized that independent research was not for me. I then worked in retail for a year before moving to California to be an instructor at Astrocamp, a year-round outdoor education camp. I taught a number of science classes, including astronomy, and had the opportunity to see the Perseverance Mars rover being put together at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. It dawned on me that I should start looking into aerospace-related graduate programs. After three years at Embry-Riddle in Daytona Beach, Florida, I received a master’s degree in engineering physics and a job offer for a flight control position, initially working for a subcontractor of United Space Alliance. I started in mission control as an attitude determination and control officer in 2012 and kept that certification until the end of 2023. Along the way, I was a Motion Control Group instructor; a Russian systems specialist and operations lead for the Houston Support Group working regularly in Moscow; a Remote Interface Officer (RIO); and supported capcom and the Vehicle Integrator team in a multipurpose support room for integration and systems engineers. I have to pinch myself when I think about how I somehow made my childhood dreams come true.
Is there someone in the space, aerospace, or science industry that has motivated or inspired you to work for the space program? Or someone you discovered while working for NASA who inspires you?
After I switched offices to Houston Support Group/RIO, most of my training was led by Sergey Sverdlin. He was a real character. Despite his gruffness, he and I got along really well. We were very different people, but we truly respected each other. I was always impressed with him and sought out his approval.
Megan Harvey in Red Square in Moscow, Russia. What is your favorite NASA memory?
The most impactful experience I’ve had at NASA was working together with the Increment 68 leads during the days and months following the Soyuz coolant leak. I was increment lead RIO and just happened to be in the Increment Management Center the day of a planned Russian spacewalk. The increment lead RIO is not typically based in the Increment Management Center, but that day, things were not going well. All of our Russian colleagues had lost access to a critical network, and I was troubleshooting with the Increment Manager and the International Space Station Mission Management Team chair.
I was explaining to International Space Station Deputy Program Manager Dina Contella the plan for getting our colleagues access before their off-hours spacewalk when we saw a snowstorm of flakes coming out of the Soyuz on the downlink video on her office’s wall. Those flakes were the coolant. It was incredible watching Dina switch from winding down for the day to making phone call after phone call saying, “I am calling you in.” The Increment Management Center filled up and I didn’t leave until close to midnight that day. The rest of December was a flurry (no pun intended) of intense and meaningful work with the sharpest and most caring people I know.
What do you love sharing about station? What’s important to get across to general audiences to help them understand the benefits to life on Earth?
There is so much to talk about! I love giving insight into the complexities of not only the space station systems themselves, but also the international collaboration of all the teams working to keep the systems and the science running.
If you could have dinner with any astronaut, past or present, who would it be?
I would have dinner with Mae Jemison or Sally Ride. It’s too hard to pick!
Do you have a favorite space-related memory or moment that stands out to you?
I was selected by my management a few years ago to visit a Navy aircraft carrier with the SpaceX Crew-1 crew and some of the Crew-1 team leads. We did a trap landing on the deck and were launched off to go home, both via a C-2 Greyhound aircraft. It was mind blowing! I am also very lucky that I saw the last space shuttle launch from Florida when I was in graduate school.
Megan Harvey and NASA colleagues on the Nimitz aircraft carrier. What are some of the key projects you’ve worked on during your time at NASA? What have been your favorite?
My first increment lead role was RIO for Increment 59 and there was a major effort to update all our products in case of needing to decrew the space station. It was eye-opening to work with the entire increment team in this effort. I really enjoyed all the work and learning and getting to know my fellow increment leads better, including Flight Director Royce Renfrew.
Also, in 2021 I was assigned as the Integration Systems Engineer (ISE) lead for the Nanorack Airlock. I had never worked on a project with so many stakeholders before. I worked close to 100 revisions of the initial activation and checkout flowchart, coordinating with the entire flight control team. It was very cool to see the airlock extracted from NASA’s SpaceX Dragon trunk and installed, but it paled in comparison to the shift when we did the first airlock trash deploy. I supported as lead ISE, lead RIO, and capcom all from the capcom console, sitting next to the lead Flight Director TJ Creamer. I gave a countdown to the robotics operations systems officer commanding the deploy on the S/G loop so that the crew and flight control team could hear, “3, 2, 1, Engage!”
I’ll never forget the satisfaction of working through all the complications with that stellar team and getting to a successful result while also having so much fun.
Megan Harvey at a bouldering gym. What are your hobbies/things you enjoy outside of work?
I love biking, rock climbing, cooking, board games, and singing.
Day launch or night launch?
Night launch!
Favorite space movie?
Space Camp. It’s so silly. And it was the first DVD I ever bought!
NASA “worm” or “meatball” logo?
Worm
Every day, we’re conducting exciting research aboard our orbiting laboratory that will help us explore further into space and bring benefits back to people on Earth. You can keep up with the latest news, videos, and pictures about space station science on the Station Research & Technology news page. It’s a curated hub of space station research digital media from Johnson and other centers and space agencies.
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By Space Force
Secretary of Defense Peter B. Hegseth announced the 2025 recipients of the Commander in Chief's Annual Award for Installation Excellence May 16.
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