Before becoming an engineer, Christine St. Germain always imagined a career working with puppets.
“I actually wanted to do animatronics and special effects,” St. Germain said. “I took a couple robotics classes as electives and thought, ‘This is terrible!’ I was thinking Jim Henson and Star Wars – but I wasn’t doing any of that stuff. So, my professor was like, ‘You’re really good at organizing things, I think you should go for engineering management.’”
Heeding the wisdom of her robotics professor, St. Germain finished her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 2007 and, a year later, received a Master of Science in engineering management, both from Florida Institute of Technology.
By 2009, St. Germain arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as a contractor for the launch vehicle integration group, working to plan and integrate the Ares I and Ares V rockets for the agency’s Constellation program. Five years later, she became an operations integration engineer and, in 2016, transitioned to a NASA civil servant as a NASA test director for the Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) program.
NASA test directors oversee flight and ground hardware testing in the Launch Control Center and are responsible for emergency management actions and helping lead the launch team during testing, launch, and recovery.
“When I first got out here, I was very fortunate to do a public outreach event for two or three days in Washington, D.C.,” St. Germain said. “I could not even speak by the time I was done. Kids and their parents were so excited about what we were doing, they had so many questions, and it was just the neatest thing to realize that I was getting to work on something that was so interesting and so inspiring to so many people.”
As a test director, St. Germain is involved in the launch operations processing, planning and execution, as well as launch console operations for Artemis, the NASA missions that will return humans to the Moon.
For the launch of Artemis I, St. Germain is part of the group supporting “call to stations,” which ensures everyone is at their console position for the start of the two-day countdown sequence before the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft launch. She helps ensure all the procedures have been confirmed, and everything is ready to proceed with the countdown.
Her job also includes preparing for the spacecraft’s return to Earth by helping plan and execute Underway Recovery Tests. These exercises train NASA’s landing and recovery team, the U.S. Navy, and other Department of Defense personnel and assets to safely retrieve Orion after splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. This range of duties makes St. Germain one of a small subset of test directors who support all three operations of Artemis I – test, launch, and recovery.
“That’s what’s extra special to me – getting to bookend the Artemis I mission,” St. Germain. “I get to start it and I get to finish it. I’m looking forward to it, because not all of my group gets to do that.”
Following successful completion of Artemis I recovery operations, St. Germain will transition into a new role in program technical integration. Her focus will shift to the EGS post-flight assessment review the EGS team will do, including analyzing the Orion capsule and all the valuable data it holds to support future Artemis missions.
“We need to get the capsule back in order to inspect it and analyze it and make sure it didn’t sustain any damage returning from orbit that would make it unsafe for astronauts on Artemis II,” St. Germain said. “This mission is our chance to do that.”