Meet the NASA engineer keeping Artemis grounded for liftoff

When NASA fires up the SLS rocket, a quiet team behind the scenes makes the moment possible. Allison Mjoen serves as NASA’s operations manager for the Exploration Ground Systems program, guiding the ground side of Artemis and the critical tasks that must line up before liftoff. Her role keeps the giant machine in harmony from checks on the hardware to the final countdown preparations.

Over more than 20 years at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Mjoen has supported a range of programs, from the early Shuttle era to work on the International Space Station, and now the Artemis program. Today she focuses on shaping integration plans and supervising ground operations for Artemis vehicle processing, with special attention to booster and Orion spacecraft activities.

“Early on, I learned that not every decision has to be perfect; every step is a chance to learn, especially when tasks seem unrelated at first,” Mjoen said. That attitude is at the heart of Artemis: careful prep paired with the flexibility to adapt as plans change.

Her day-to-day job involves coordinating across multiple teams to ensure the hardware comes together smoothly. She works with the ground systems’ senior vehicle operations manager to connect the work of engineers, technicians, and planners, making sure every component, from boosters to the Orion capsule, can operate together when the moment arrives.

In Mjoen’s view, Artemis isn’t just about the science or the hardware. It’s about sharing a moment with families who might witness a launch, the same kind of collective inspiration that sparked the space program decades ago. “Artemis is creating that spark again, and this time with staying power,” she said, referencing the broader goal of sustained lunar exploration.

Her leadership relies on open collaboration. She describes daily work as a web of conversations across engineering, operations and project management, where clear communication and trust keep procedures on track. “Every decision and communication directly supported the integrated team’s ability to safely and properly implement the test procedure,” she noted, underscoring how small choices matter on a mission timeline.

For families watching a launch, the preparation begins long before the countdown. The quiet, steady work at the Ground Systems layer is what makes a Moon mission possible, turning ambitious plans into an achievable milestone.

As Artemis moves from testing toward crewed missions, Mjoen and her colleagues will continue the careful, behind-the-scenes work that bridges design and liftoff, keeping humanity’s pace toward the Moon steady and deliberate.