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Sarah Gillis
Born
Sarah Gilis

born 1994
StatusActive
Alma materUniversity of Colorado Boulder (Aerospace engineering)
Space career
SpaceX Astronaut
Current occupation
SpaceX Lead Operations Engineer
Time in space
None
MissionsPolaris Dawn

Sarah Gillis is an American astronaut. She is selected for the Polaris Dawn mission, in which she will be mission specialist.[1] If the mission goes ahead as planned in late 2022, she will become the youngest American in orbit.

Early life and education

Not much is know about Sarah's childhood, but she comes from a family of artists and intellectuals. Her father was the principal of a Waldorf school in Oregon. She studied in a Shining Mountain Waldorf school in Boulder from which she graduated in 2012.[2] She is destined to become a classical violinist, but Sarah moved on when a beloved high school mentor, former NASA astronaut Joseph R. Tanner, encourages her to pursue a degree in aerospace engineering. Originally from Boulder, Colorado, Sarah is an avid hiker, climber and adventurer. So, she went to University of Colorado Boulder.

Career

In 2015, while studying engineering and dance at the University of Colorado Boulder, Sarah began an internship at SpaceX, working on tests of the Dragon spacecraft with the crew at the controls before moving full-time to the astronaut training program. Sarah Gillis is today a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX, responsible for overseeing the astronaut training program aboard the company's Crew Dragon ships. This includes developing a mission-specific program and performing training for NASA and Commercial astronaut who fly aboard the Dragon spacecraft. She prepared NASA astronauts for the first Demo-2 and Crew-1 missions and more recently directly trained Inspiration4 astronauts, the first all-civilian crew to go into orbit. Sarah is an experienced Mission Control Operator, who has supported real-time operations for Dragon's cargo resupply missions to and from the International Space Station as a Navigation Officer and as an Airline Communicator for crew Dragon's manned spaceflight missions.[3]

Sarah Gillis[3] was later was selected[4] to ride on the Polaris Dawn mission, commanded by Jared Isaacman.

Media Coverage

She appears as an astronaut trainer in the series Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space.[2]

References

  1. ^ "Jared Isaacman, who led the first all-private astronaut mission to orbit, has commissioned 3 more flights from SpaceX". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2022-02-16.
  2. ^ a b "Shooting for the Stars: SMWS Alum and SpaceX Engineer Sarah Gillis". Shining Mountain Waldorf School. 2021-09-28. Retrieved 2022-02-16.
  3. ^ a b Jiménez, Jesus (2021-09-15). "Sarah Gillis will be a key voice in the astronauts' ears as they head to orbit". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-02-16.
  4. ^ ""SpaceX Tourists Will Make Attempt at Spacewalk During Flight"", The New York Times, ISSN 0362-4331, retrieved 2022-02-16


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