At NASA she aims for the moon – and beyond
With SHS science classes as a foundation, Kathryn ‘Katie’ Shaw Oriti ’02 has forged a career that has her aiming skyward.
While at SHS Katie played in both the marching and symphonic bands, was a member of the swim team, participated in mock trial and was an honor student.
At Ohio Northern University she earned a degree in mechanical engineering with a minor in biomedical sciences.
Afterward her career began blossoming at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. She started her career as a mechanical test engineer and subsequently moved to thermal control engineer, systems engineer and project management. Currently Katie is supporting NASA’s Artemis program, designed to take astronauts to the moon and beyond, as the deputy manager for the Orion Spacecraft European Service Module.
The Orion spacecraft primarily consists of the crew module for astronauts and the service module that provides propulsion, power, temperature control and consumables. As deputy manager of the European Service Module Integration Office, Katie is working with international and industry partners to assure that the two Orion spacecraft modules work flawlessly together.
During the Artemis I mission in November 2022, she worked in the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas as a Mission Evaluation Room manager. During the 26-day mission, Katie worked with engineers, flight controllers and the Artemis Flight Directors as the Orion spacecraft traversed nearly 270,000 miles to the moon and back to Earth.
Katie and her team are currently working towards the Artemis II mission, a crewed test flight of the Orion spacecraft to lunar orbit.
Her zest for space exploration started in childhood with a telescope and viewing the Hale-Bopp comet in the Richland County night skies. Katie currently resides in Westlake, Ohio with her husband Sal and daughter Kara Oriti.