Huy Nguyen grew up hearing about rocket engines and space flight around the family table. His parents worked for NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, and those early conversations eventually started his path to NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
“They both created a household that allowed me to be curious and to be a problem solver,” Nguyen said.
The dinner conversations have come full circle as the New Orleans native finds himself applying that same curiosity and problem-solving mindset at NASA Stennis.
Nguyen is currently the electrical controls engineer for propulsion testing support areas, which include the NASA Stennis High Pressure Gas Facility and the High Pressure Industrial Water Facility.
“Both areas are considered the heart and powerhouse of testing,” Nguyen said.
His work involves two key challenges: maintaining legacy systems with hard-to-find replacement parts and modernizing them with robust control systems that offer better monitoring and maintenance capabilities. What energizes Nguyen most is bridging old and new technology by creating improved user interfaces and integrating modern controls with existing infrastructure.
“This is what excites me about my work,” he said.
One of the most exciting moments in Nguyen’s NASA career came with the successful Green Run test series at NASA Stennis for NASA’s Artemis campaign to return humans to the …
