Local NASA engineer projects path forward for Artemis program

ROCHESTER, N.Y. This week NASA announced the crew that will fly to the moon for the first time in 50 years. News10NBC spoke with a NASA engineer with ties to our area.

Spencerport High School and Rochester Institute of Technology graduate Darcy DeAngelis said that progress being made through NASA’s Artemis program is just a small part of a project aiming for an ultimate goal, putting a man on Mars.

DeAngelis said her work on the Artemis project primarily centers around the service module part of the spacecraft, which provides propulsion and thermal control, allowing the spacecraft to make its safe journey to the moon.

“It’s kind of colloquially known as the moon to Mars project,” DeAngelis said. “We are going to the moon so that we can do testing, do science, figure out what we need to do to establish man’s presence on the moon and find out how to make that happen on Mars.”

DeAngelis said that NASA hopes to have Artemis III boots on the moon two to three years after Artemis II.