Interview: Teresa Spinelli, Mission Director of the Cygnus Spacecraft

At Dragon Con 2024, I had the chance to sit down with Teresa Spinelli, the mission director for the Cygnus spacecraft. While that alone is incredibly fascinating, she is also the youngest and only woman, at the time of this writing, to have ever led a Cygnus mission. We discussed what she does, which fandom led her into the field, how her field has changed for women over time, and geeked out over those adorable mission patches.

Hope Mullinax: When I was reading your profile on the Dragon Con website, I thought it was so cool. When I think about space, I'm a very artsy person. I like the stories and the lore of the constellations, but you love the math and the science of the space. What is it that you do? What is the Cygnus program?

Teresa Spinelli: Cygnus is a vehicle that resupplies the International Space Station to keep it running. It takes a lot to do that. We're taking food, breathable air, clothes, anything they could need to repair problems on the Space Station as well as science. The number one thing we have a Space Station for is for science.

I didn't actually think about breathable air.

It's interesting to me how simple [the air] is. Obviously, it's difficult to get things from the ground to the Space Station, but once it's there, it's just an air tank. Like if you see air tanks in hospitals. Of course, we can take up different types of air and things like that. It's not 100% oxygen. It’s just breathable air, and they'll just open the canister and release it.

Are there times when the Space Station is like, “Hey, we're going to be out of bacon in three months?”

There is a whole team of people that their job is to deal with how much of everything do we have on the station, as well as what our reserves look like. [They think about] what if a resupply vehicle doesn't make it? What if we have a delay of a launch because there's bad weather or things like that. You have to think about it and making sure you have enough to sustain yourself over that timeframe. It's my job as a mission director to lead the Cygnus flight operations team.

What that means is that from vehicle separation—so, we're on a launch vehicle, and we break off the launch vehicle. Once we break off the launch vehicle, me and the other mission directors, it's our job to leave the team to control everything for Cygnus for the rest of the Cygnus lifetime. I think people hear about a lot of space missions and think they last a really, really long time.

For Cygnus, what we're doing is an incredible sprint. That's what we're doing. We go 96 hours from vehicle packed on the ground to opening the hatch on the Space Station. That's what we're trying to do in order to make sure that all that science can arrive in the most healthy form possible.

We take up a lot of really cool science: studying human cells, human tissues, things like that. They're basically put in fancy fridges. It slowly starts to decay, to degrade, so we're trying to get it there in the absolute most healthy condition as we can possibly do. That's where those 96 hours really come into play.

What is the benefits of doing science on the Space Station versus here on the ground?

That's a really good question. I'm not a science person, so they know the details. I will say that the Zero-G environment or Micro-G if there's a little bit of gravity has different effects on nearly everything. There's been talk of what if we 3D print things in space? It can make stronger materials than what's here on the ground. Also, growing plants is different. How human skin cells react is different. There are so many different areas. Everybody has their expertise in certain areas, and all of them are different once you leave the ground basically.

I was also going ask you what inspired you to go into this kind of field, but I feel like with the Star Trek outfit you’re wearing, this is pretty obvious. So, what is it about Star Trek that inspired you?

I grew up watching everything sci-fi. My parents were really into it. I grew up watching black and white Lost in Space reruns. I kind of watched the whole gambit. What I really liked about Star Trek is I am one of the, I think, few people that I work with that I never wanted to be an astronaut. I always wanted to be on the ground. I always wanted to be ground control, mission operations.

And that's what I love about Star Trek is watching the bridge crew. Watching how they interact and deal with actually flying this vehicle which is somewhat I like to think similar to how we fly a vehicle on the ground.

It's really not that much difference though. It really is kind of like the bridge and like you're guiding them.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Do you have a favorite series and a favorite captain?

Oh my gosh, that's really hard.

Pick your children.

[Laughs] Basically, yeah. I think I usually always have to say I have to go back to the original series. I do love Janeway as a captain because she's a woman, and I love that sort of representation.

But TOS is what drew me in initially, so it's kind of like that nostalgia hit. I also really like Discovery. I really like all the things that they've been doing with that kind of new—I guess I'll call it reboot-esque? Discovery, Strange New Worlds, I love all the stuff that they're doing, but TOS will always be very special.

Something I did want to know about is what is it like being a woman in this field? I'm sure there are pros and cons.

For sure. Yes.

And what do you think would help get more women into the field?

I've been in the field for about eight years now since I graduated. To me, I've already seen leaps and bounds differences.

When I started, there were two or three women that worked on the whole floor of my building, you know. I didn't necessarily even interact with any of them. So, to me, it almost didn't feel like they existed because we didn't ever get to see each other. It wasn't like I really worked with women.

But now, I can tap half of my control team is women. We had our entire operations team. Our sort of frontline, you could think of them as, we're women that I was lead on. I think there's a lot happening.

I remember interviewing for the job, and they asked me, "What do you think is the thing that's going to be hardest for you to do this job?" I said, “I think it's going to be people taking me seriously.” Not only am I younger, but I'm also a woman. To be the head honcho of a flight team and everybody has to listen to the options. The things I choose is very much like Star Trek. The captain says, “We're going to do this,” and that's what happens. But I'm really happy to say that I have never run into a problem with my flight control team.

I think that there is like a huge level of respect there that I really appreciate. I respect the deep insight knowledge that they have and they respect the fact that I'm the one at the end of the day that's making the decision on what we're going to be doing.

It is interesting to be a woman in the field just because of the way that inherently men and women react differently in different scenarios. I think part of having a diverse group means that you tackle scenarios better. You have more creative solutions and things like that.

I would say the biggest learning curve for me was having a lot of really outspoken men in meetings and being the only woman. Learning that there is a certain way of communicating that, to me, as a woman coming in, especially growing up in the Midwest, that's a little bit more traditional values, that being like, “Oh, I'm not supposed to speak up and say that you're wrong,” here in front of a group of people. You have to learn this new communication style.

I also understand that from a nerdy point of view. I used to run a comic book store. And being a woman running a comic book store in this nerdy geeky space, you have to learn how to communicate with men and also sometimes tell people no.

Yeah, exactly, exactly!

It's really hard to sometimes tell people no, but you have to be able to do that in those kinds of positions. I mean, I'm not running like a Space Station or anything! Those are not the same thing, but it is very important to be able to learn how to communicate with other people.

Yeah, and I think I'm definitely—I won't say an emotional person, but like, empathetic, I guess I'll say? Learning that we can go into a room and nearly be yelling at each other for an hour. That was a really interesting thing to learn, like, “You all are yelling at each other, but 30 minutes later, you guys are like best buds”. That was definitely a learning curve.

It's kind of leave it at the door.

Yeah, for sure. Walk in the door, this is what it is. And when we leave, it's like nothing personal.

Where do you think it could still improve for women in the field?

I think part of it is it's really almost like a numbers game. I think that something that when I was in college, there were a lot of classes that I was the only woman in the class and it creates this sort of like…

You feel very alone sort of feeling. Also, the classes and things we're taking are really hard. They have very high drop rates. “This class is too hard, I'm going to drop it this semester, and I'm gonna come back and take it next semester.” But when there are three girls in a hundred-person class and one girl drops out, you notice it. It kind of gives you that feeling of like, ”Oh, am I supposed to be here? She isn't here anymore. Am I supposed to be here?”

As I think there's more drive to bring women and young girls into STEM and things like that, it helps those numbers games and that creates community for us. And community is what helps people get through these difficult times and things like that. Community where people look like you, where people are a representation of you, I think is the most important thing, really.

If somebody wanted to get into this sort of field, where can people find the communities? Are there Facebook groups or social media where they could join those communities?

That's a really good question. What's popped up a lot is a lot of engineering specific organizations: Women in Engineering, Society of Women Engineers, things like that. They all have offshoots at universities. Then, I've even seen a lot of universities pop up even more specific little mini communities.

Since I've left Georgia Tech, it now has specifically a Women in Aerospace Engineering [group] and things like that. I think it's those little pockets that are really the most important. Something that we talked about was literally just having another girl go with you to like, “Oh, I want to join this rocketry club, but I'm scared to show up and be the only woman. Will another girl go with me to this club so we can check it out?” I hate to say that some of it is word of mouth. I've found since even joining cosplay, there are a thousand Facebook groups for everything. Like in your area, there will be something that exists for what you're looking for.

Sometimes we just have to actually carve the spaces. If we don't do it, no one will.

For sure, yeah.

I think that can be daunting. Being able to take that first step and having that community makes it easier, because the more voices lift up, the more people know about it.

Also, a lot of times, we have to forge our own way and that means that what's really important for those of us that forge that way is to then create the community, right? That is like what is so important, and it's something that I love doing.

People always say like, “Don't look back,” as if looking back is bad. But for me, I'm always like I want to look back to where I came from and then build a community for that.

Because if we don't look and learn the history, it's not going to get better. We're seeing that with our own world now. People trying to ban books, ban science, ignore what's going on around us because they don't want to learn. They want to have this power and control over us.

Exactly.

I absolutely want to know what is the most underrated part of your job that you always want to talk about, but you never get to talk about?

When I started working, part of my job is that I interface with NASA. Part of what I do, on not an everyday basis but we take turns doing it, is I call in to the International Space Station's handover. So, every morning they hand over from one team to another team.

I want to know how this call goes.

It's very simple. I just sit there, and they're like, “Hey, what's Cygnus doing?” I'm like, “Cygnus is good. Thumbs up. We're good for the day.”

Is that a Skype call?

It's actually on our voice loops, right. It's very much like if you've ever seen any sort of old like Apollo movie or show or anything, we wear headsets, we have little clicker buttons, we push to talk, things like that. So when I was like just starting out, I would listen to the chatter on NASA loops. They speak a very certain way.

And I actually ended up having like, “Oh, I know I've made it when I've had these phrases that I got to say.” It’s first off talking to the flight director, right? And now the flight director is like my counterpart, my bud that we chat with.

They just have certain lingo, and you're like, “I feel really cool.” If you tell somebody something like, “Hey, go change the channel to channel four.” Then you would be like, “Okay, copy, channel four.” And then I'd say, “Good. Read back.” Right? That's like, “Oh, you said it! You said what I said! That’s good!” If you try to fix something that doesn't work, you'd be like, “That's no joy.”

I had a list of phrases. I need to say these cool phrases. It'll be really cool. I really made it because I've had these sort of conversations. And now, our conversations are way more technical, but I'm always like, “Oh yes, today I got to say this phrase.”

When I was researching for this interview, I found out that the different Cygnus missions have patches! They're so cute! Oh my gosh! I saw the little octopus one!

The octopus one's the best!

And then the current Cygnus one, it looks like it's from Star Wars.

Oh, that's a good guess! Actually, NG-21 patch is [a window]. On the International Space Station, they have something called the cupola and the cupola are these like windows that the crew can look out of. There's a lot of famous photos of crew members floating by the cupola.

That patch is actually inspired by seeing Cygnus approach the station through the cupola windows. But yeah, it does kind of look like the old Star Wars movies where they're looking out of…

The homing, yeah.

That's actually really interesting. I didn't think about that, but I can entirely see where that comes from.

I did write down the NG-16 swan because that was my favorite of all the swan designs, because again, I love the lore and the mythology of the constellations.

For me, NG-19 was my first flight, so NG-19 had a very simple swan. It's just the black with the silver. I like that one because it was my first lead mission.

I was going to ask you what was your favorite, so I figured that one is. Do you have another favorite that you like of the patches?

We talked about the octopus. The octopus is great. I think it was NG-17. It has a very retro look to it. It always gives that Fallout, retro style. I think that one was really cool. That was our first reboost at the International Space Station. It really features the Cygnus main engine in it as well.

Excellent. Thank you so much for your time, Teresa.

Thank you so much. This was so lovely.

This interview was edited for clarity.