207: Laura Crabtree from Epsilon3

Casual Space

Laura is the CEO and Co-Founder of Epsilon3. Among the initial members of the operations team for SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, she helped put the US back in the human space flight business.

Laura wants to continue to revolutionize the space industry, beginning with operational tools. She believes that no matter what your specialty, no matter where you attended school, and whatever your talents may be, there is a place for you in the space industry. Find Laura and her company, Epsilon3 at www.epsilon3.io Connect with Laura on LinkedIn at: Linkedin.com/lauracrabtree linkedin.com/epsilon3inc and on twitter: @epsilon3inc twitter: @llcrabbie

More about Laura:

Laura was one of the Crew Operations & Resource Engineers (CORE) who helped put the United States back in the human Space Flight business. Among the initial members of the operations team for SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, she was also on console for the first Dragon mission in 2010, the first mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2012, and part of the commercial crew contract over the next decade—including the mission that delivered astronauts to the ISS in 2020. During that mission, Laura was the lead trainer for the crew and one of the CORE operators who communicated to and advocated for the crew during free flight.

Laura’s proudest moment was receiving a call on her personal cell phone from Astronaut Doug Hurley when he was orbiting above the earth and operating both the first commercial cargo and crew vehicles in free flight.

During her time at SpaceX, Laura was also a part of the early F9 Recovery, Dragon Recovery, and Dragon operations teams. She was responsible for crew and ground operator flight training, flight software test, CONOPs development and simulator design. Over the years, Laura authored, tested and executed hundreds of procedures for both the ground operations teams and the crew onboard Dragon.

Laura began her career at Northrop Grumman working various programs for DARPA and other DoD customers. She has a Bachelor’s in Astronautical Engineering and a Master’s in Systems Architecture, both from the University of Southern California.