Blue Origin’s Audrey Powers to fulfill lifelong dream to go to space

As a young girl, Audrey Powers peered through a telescope, looking to the vast darkness of space, and imagined herself floating in a spacesuit. Soon she will travel to space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard NS-18, fulfilling her childhood dream.

Now, Audrey is the Vice President of New Shepard Mission and Flight Operations at Blue Origin with a front-row seat and a key role in Blue Origin’s vision to enable a future where millions of people are living and working in space to benefit Earth.

Throughout her life, curiosity fed her education and career path.

“My elementary school was so great about us all watching the shuttle launches together in class,” she said. “They would roll the TV into the classroom on one of those metal carts and we would watch the launches. I wondered what it would be like to try to find where I lived floating up there in a spacesuit.”

She grew up near Washington D.C. and throughout her childhood, Powers’ parents supported their daughter’s inquisitiveness, often visiting the National Air and Space Museum.

At Purdue University she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering. She launched her career as a Flight Controller in Mission Control at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. After 10 years as an engineer with United Space Alliance, Audrey earned her law degree at Santa Clara University and joined Blue Origin as Deputy General Counsel in 2013. Blending her education and space engineering experience positioned Audrey well for her current leadership role at Blue Origin.

She is a fierce advocate for diversity, serving as the executive sponsor of Blue Origin’s New Mercury gender diversity business resource group and serves as the Chair of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, an organization dedicated to promoting the development of commercial human spaceflight and the commercial space industry.

“I’m so proud and humbled to fly on behalf of Team Blue, and I’m excited to continue writing Blue’s human spaceflight history,” she said.

Follow Audrey and her fellow crew members on launch day beginning at T-90 minutes on BlueOrigin.com. Liftoff is currently targeted for 8:30 am CDT / 13:30 UTC from Launch Site One in West Texas.