I Am Testing SLS: Heather Haney

As a child, NASA engineer Heather Haney wanted to help send explorers to space. Now she’s doing just that, leading a team testing elements of the world’s most powerful rocket — the Space Launch System — so her little girl will have new opportunities to push the boundaries of space exploration. #NASASLS

NASA Engineer Heather Haney Juggles SLS Testing, Charity Work And More

As an engineer in the Space Launch System stages office, I’m part of the team making sure the world’s most powerful rocket is strong enough to handle the extreme forces of spaceflight. I lead a team preparing parts of the rocket for integrated testing at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. I focus on elements including the intertank and the engine section, known as dry structures because they don’t hold fuel. These structures must be ready to endure the brute force of liftoff; they’re attached to the engines and solid rocket boosters delivering the 8.8 million pounds of thrust needed to loft SLS to space.

My job involves coordinating efforts among the people building, moving and testing these structures crucial to launching SLS on unprecedented new exploration missions. I ensure every technician, test engineer and contractor is ready for these vital structural tests. Our analysis will show SLS can survive the extreme environments it will face during launch and while carrying astronauts on new missions, going farther from home than humans have ever before traveled! I’m so proud to help make that happen.

I grew up not far from Marshall near Athens, Alabama. I was crazy about the space shuttle as a kid, and I knew I wanted to be among the workers who help America’s astronauts travel safely to space and back. I decided to become an engineer like my dad, who worked at Browns Ferry nuclear plant near Athens. I earned my degree in mathematics from Troy State University in 1998 and my engineering degree from Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama, in 2000. I joined the Marshall team in 2001.

Today, my life is very full. I’m the mother of a 1-year-old. I run triathlons and volunteer with my certified therapy dog — a black lab named Bear — at schools, hospitals and care facilities. I run the Will Haney Foundation, a cancer research charity founded in memory of my brother Will, who died in 2011 of a rare form of cancer called Rhabdomyosarcoma. And I’m so proud of my team’s contributions to NASA’s mission! I hope one day my little girl will watch an SLS launch with her classmates and get as excited as I did watching the shuttle fly all those years ago. I can’t imagine passing on a more worthy passion.