Amarillo native leads NASA Gateway Program to create moon orbiting space station

Brianna Maestas, Amarillo Globe-News
·3 min read

Amarillo native Holly Ridings, the first female chief of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) flight directors, is helping lead NASA's Gateway Program, an international partnership to establish humanity’s first space station orbiting around the Moon.

NASA announced in late May Ridings' new position as the Deputy Program Manager for the Gateway Program. In her added role, she will lead teams to create and launch NASA's first human tended foundational infrastructure, Artemis I, which will be the first of a series of increasingly complex missions under the Gateway Program that will enable human exploration in space, including the Moon and Mars.

Amarillo native Holly Ridings, the first female chief of NASA’s flight directors, was appointed as deputy program manager with Gateway Program, which is geared to establish humanity’s first space station orbiting around the Moon.
Amarillo native Holly Ridings, the first female chief of NASA’s flight directors, was appointed as deputy program manager with Gateway Program, which is geared to establish humanity’s first space station orbiting around the Moon.

“The Gateway Program will be served incredibly well by Holly’s tremendous depth of experience supporting the International Space Station,” said Dan Hartman, Gateway Program manager. “Through Gateway, NASA is extending more than 20 years of discovery, research and international collaboration in low-Earth orbit to deep space, starting at the Moon.”

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Ridings, originally from Amarillo, attended Texas A&M University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1996. A year later in 1997, she began her career at NASA as a flight controller in the thermal operations group, working at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Later, Ridings became a flight controller at NASA’s Mission Control Center, located in NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where she led various teams supporting the International Space Station. In September 2018, Ridings was appointed Chief Flight Director, for her contributions to the missions and leadership during the first commercial cargo spacecraft mission to the space station in 2012.

Amarillo native Holly Ridings, first female chief of NASA’s flight directors, was appointed in May as deputy program manager for the Gateway Program, which is geared to establish humanity’s first space station orbiting around the Moon.
Amarillo native Holly Ridings, first female chief of NASA’s flight directors, was appointed in May as deputy program manager for the Gateway Program, which is geared to establish humanity’s first space station orbiting around the Moon.

Ridings said her new position allows her to work with a new side of space flight.

"I am still new to Gateway; up until a couple of weeks ago, I was in operations focusing on the flying the spaceship side of the equation. It was awesome. I loved it, and now I have the opportunity to come over to the building the spaceship side to learn what it takes to get these amazing vehicles off the Earth and out into space and sustain them for human presence for multiple years," Ridings said.

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Based at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, the Gateway Program is an international collaboration that is building a small, human-tended space station that will orbit the Moon as a vital component of NASA’s Artemis missions.

"It's a really exciting mission. The space station is planned to be there for 15-plus years. ... It's going to really change the way we look at the sky and look at the Moon, and it will kind of give us a toe hold out there in space," Ridings said. "The goal overall is to head out to the Moon and then stay there so that someday we can travel to Mars from that point."

The Gateway Program will host many capabilities for sustained exploration and research in deep space, including docking ports for a variety of visiting spacecraft and space for crew to live and work. The research will focus on three main components, including onboard science investigation, studying topics such as heliophysics, human health, and life sciences. The second component in the research will be development of technology to allow for more exploration; the third area of research will include Mars exploration and information to someday be able to travel further into space.

According to Ridings, Artemis I is currently in the building and planning phase, where her involvement is centered. After the building portion is finished, the Artemis will be assembled and then prepared for its expected launch later in the year of 2024.

For more about the NASA project, visit https://www.nasa.gov/topics/moon-to-mars .

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Amarillo native leads NASA Gateway Program for Moon space station