On September 28, 2026, NASA announced that Kristie Foster, a long‑time contractor at the Stennis Space Center, has joined the agency as a civil servant. The quality engineer, based in the high‑pressure test facilities near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, will continue to support the agency’s Artemis program and other propulsion‑testing activities under a new workforce directive aimed at strengthening core technical competencies.
Foster’s career at Stennis began in 2008 as a contractor and has spanned more than a decade of work on the agency’s largest rocket‑propulsion test site. She now manages quality assurance and engineering for the High Pressure Gas Facility, where nitrogen, helium, hydrogen and air are produced, stored and distributed through a seven‑mile pipeline, and the High Pressure Industrial Water Facility, which uses a 66‑million‑gallon reservoir to supply cooling and sound‑suppression water to test stands.
“If you put safety and quality up front and incorporate it throughout the entire process, you are going to end up with a better product at the end,” Foster said. “Because NASA pushes safety and actively performs it, we are able to work at a fast pace with safety at the forefront.”
In addition to her quality‑engineering duties, Foster has taken on a safety role supporting the build‑up at the Thad Cochran Test Stand (B‑2), where Blue Origin will conduct second‑stage hot‑fire testing of its New Glenn rocket. Her responsibilities include reviewing test preparation sheets, verifying operational plans in the field, and ensuring processes are followed from design through final closeout.
Foster’s move to the civil service preserves critical institutional knowledge and follows a personal legacy: her father retired from NASA after about 20 years at Stennis last year. “It means a lot, especially carrying the family legacy forward after my father retired from NASA last year after working about 20 years at Stennis,” she said. “It meant something to finally see that dream come true in full circle.”
While her focus remains on returning astronauts to the Moon, Foster’s journey began locally. She earned two years of study at Pearl River Community College and summer night classes at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College before completing a bachelor’s degree in construction management and land development at Mississippi State University. An internship with the Naval Oceanographic Office and a four‑week holiday internship on a Stennis construction project led to a senior‑year schedule that ultimately secured a full‑time position at the center.
A resident of Poplarville, Mississippi, Foster balances her career with life on a farm and a 12‑year‑old son who shares her enthusiasm for space. “I have always lived by the saying: ‘Shoot for the Moon, because even if you miss, you land among the stars.’ That is how I have approached my career,” she said. “It takes persistence and enjoying what you do. One neat thing about working with NASA at Stennis, especially in the test complex, is that I have never done the same thing twice. It is always an evolving situation.”
<small>Source: NASA — read the original story there.</small>
