National Geographic Live: Cosmic Adventures with Tracy Drain

Discover the marvels of our cosmic backyard through the eyes of the robotic spacecraft sent out to explore it. Aerospace engineer Tracy Drain works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop, test, and operate the complex machines that uncover some of the countless mysteries within and beyond our solar system. Tracy Drain is a flight systems engineer who has helped develop, test, and operate a variety of robotic spacecraft for deep space exploration in a career spanning more than two decades. After obtaining B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kentucky and Georgia Tech respectively and interning at the NASA Langley Research Center as an undergraduate student, she landed a full-time position on the engineering staff at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2000. She is currently the lead Flight Systems Engineer on the Europa Clipper mission.