Christina Koch’s New NASA Engineering Assignment

The position comes with a change to management astronaut status. NASA says that means Koch will no longer be eligible for future spaceflight assignments. Her new responsibilities include technical oversight and mission readiness across the agency.

Koch began her NASA career as an electrical engineer before becoming an astronaut in 2013. Her flight record includes 328 consecutive days aboard the International Space Station and participation in the first all-female spacewalks. NASA’s announcement also identifies her as an Artemis II crew member.

NASA’s biography traces a route through scientific work well outside the usual office. Koch spent a year in the U.S. Antarctic Program, including a winter at the South Pole, and later worked in Greenland, Alaska and American Samoa. At Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory she contributed to instruments for missions including Juno and the Van Allen Probes. After her station flight, she led the Astronaut Office’s Assigned Crew Branch and worked in technical integration at Johnson Space Center. That combination gives the new appointment a clear through-line: building instruments, operating them in remote environments and helping organize the crews who depend on complex engineering.

Van Hooser leaves after more than 35 years at NASA. For Koch, the transition puts operational experience into decisions about how spacecraft and other mission systems are prepared for the people who will use them next.