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I Am Artemis Katie Spicer

Now as the NASA lander integration lead for Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 2 lander, one of the commercially provided human landing systems for NASA’s Artemis program, Spicer will have her handprint on history.

✦ Extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting•From 1 source•2 min read•Updated November 12, 2026, 8:10 PM UTC
Key points
  • Spicer works closely with her NASA and Blue Origin counterparts to ensure the design of the Blue Moon lander can support the overall Artemis mission objectives.
  • NASA’s Katie Spicer stands in front of the crew cabin prototype for Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 2 lunar lander.
  • The design of the Blue Moon lander is rapidly evolving as Blue Origin continues to develop a streamlined lander test article for the agency’s Artemis III rendezvous and docking mission in low Earth orbit as well as a fully functional lander for a crewed lunar landing in 2028.

“I look at the design of everything Artemis crews will touch, work with, or interface with to ensure systems will function the way crews will need them to,” Spicer said.

Additional details
  • “I went from tidying up and keeping my home running to maintaining the historic lab where the Apollo crews were quarantined when they came back from the Moon and the Moon rock samples were stored,” Spicer said.
  • I learned to speak ‘engineer!’” Spicer spent five years as an Operations and Support Officer in the space station’s flight control room in Mission Control, also known as the “front room” to spaceflight.
  • As part of a Golden Age of innovation and exploration, NASA will send Artemis astronauts on increasingly difficult missions near the lunar South Pole to explore more of the Moon than ever before.
  • The lander is one of two commercial human landing systems that will help safely ferry astronauts from lunar orbit to the Moon’s surface and back for the agency’s crewed Artemis missions in 2028.
  • After earning a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the Pennsylvania State University in State College, Spicer spent several years working as a full-time homemaker and raising three children.

How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →

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NASA NewsNovember 12, 2026, 8:10 PM UTC →

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