Chasing Stars & Defying Gravity w/ Janelle Wellons

When Janelle Wellons graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, she had no idea that it would spark the beginning of a 7 year career operating science instruments and spacecraft at the Moon, Saturn, and our own planet Earth. She is currently a Senior Mission Operations Engineer at ispace, inc., leading routine and critical space operations from the HAKUTO-R Mission Control Center as a Flight Director for the companies’ lunar lander missions.Previously, Janelle worked at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the Earth observing MAIA, Sentinel-6, and SWOT missions as well as the Cassini mission to Saturn and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Speaking to students about pursuing careers in space has been a constant throughout her career and she has been grateful to share her message through features by PBS SciGirls, Nike, Lego, and more. At JPL she was awarded the Bruce Murray Award for “inspiring students to engage in STEM, quenching their thirst for knowledge, and sparking a curiosity greater than the stars in the sky.”When she isn’t on-call to operate robots in space, you can find her exploring her new home in Japan and doing outreach for communities traditionally underrepresented in STEM.