Mari Forrestel

Mari Forrestel serves as the technical assistant to the Artemis Launch Director for the agency’s Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In this role, she supports all facets of Artemis pre-launch and launching operations.

Experience

Prior to Forrestel’s position at Kennedy, she was a flight controller for emergency, environmental control, and life support systems, as well as a flight crew emergency instructor in the Mission Control Center for over 15 years at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Forrestel transferred to Kennedy Space Center and joined the NASA Test Director Office in March 2019, where she has supported test, launch, and recovery operations in the Launch Control Center and underway recovery test operations at sea in several roles, including certifying as a NASA Test Director, and serving as the NASA Recovery Director Technical Assistant.

In January of 2022, she was selected as the NASA Recovery Director for Artemis II and supported in that leadership role until her brief hiatus from the agency in 2023.

Education

Forrestel graduated from the University of Florida in 2004 with a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering.

Personal

Forrestel was born and raised in Santurce, Puerto Rico. Her father worked in the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico in the late 1970s, and she has had an interest in space ever since she was a kid. Forrestel moved to the U.S. in the early 1990s, and she began her NASA career at Johnson Space Center in 2004.

She currently resides in Merritt Island, Florida, with her husband, Daniel, and their daughter, Eleanora.

Biography last updated April 2024