Lindy Garay: Supporting Space Station Safety and Success

Lindy Garay has always known that she wanted to develop software. She did not provide that her work would contribute to human space flight.

The Diploma in Electric Engineering and Software that Garay obtained from the University of Texas in Austin has paved the way for a 25 -year career at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. Its first job outside the university was to develop software for the training simulator of the space station of the International Space Station of the Space Station. “I had not always been interested in working in the space program, but I became in love with being able to contribute to such an important mission,” she said.

Today, Garay is a training system for training systems and is the technical prospect of the external interfaces of the training system. This means that it leads the team that helps connect NASA external partners to training with simulations led by the Johnson’s Mission Training Center (MTC) to support the training of the crew and the flight controller. The MTC currently offers training capacities for the international space station station, the commercial crew program and the artemis campaign components such as the Orion program and the human landing system.

Garay said that not having aerospace training was difficult at the start of her career, but she overcome this based on teammates who had knowledge and experience in the field. “Each successful company depends on the possibility of having a solid team of dedicated people working with a single objective,” she said. “Success also depends on good communication, flexibility and being willing to listen to different opinions,” she added.

Garay was recently appointed winner of the NASA space -frying awareness program – one of the highest recognitions presented in the agency’s workforce. The recipients must have contributed significantly to the program of human space flights to ensure the safety of flights and the success of the mission. The congratulation of Garay recognized his “superior performances supported, his dedication and his commitment to the objectives of the Directorate of Flight Operations” and his instrumental role in the success of several major projects of training systems. In particular, it has been recognized for contributions to the high -level architecture simulation framework, which is used to create realistic simulations of arrival, mooring and departure of the vehicle space station.

Garay and 36 other agency laureates were celebrated during a special ceremony in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and had the opportunity to attend the launch of the NASA SpaceX Crew-10 mission to Kennedy Space Center in NASA. “It was a whole honor,” she said.

Outside of work, Garay can be found by applauding Houston sports teams. She likes to travel to watch the Texans and Astros play.

Garay is also rooted for the Artemis generation while NASA is preparing to return to the moon and go to Mars. She offered this advice: “Always remember the importance and extent of the whole mission.”