Our Executive Mentors

Laura Crabtree

BS, Astronautics and Space Technology Engineering, 2004

MS, Systems Architecting in Engineering, 2012

Laura Crabtree was one of the Crew Operations & Resource Engineers (CORE) who helped put the United States back in the human Space Flight business. Among the initial members of the operations team for SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, she was also on console for the first Dragon mission in 2010, the first mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2012, and part of the commercial crew contract over the next decade—including the mission that delivered astronauts to the ISS in 2020. During that mission, Laura was the lead trainer for the crew and one of the CORE operators who communicated to and advocated for the crew during free flight. During her time at SpaceX, Laura was also a part of the early F9 Recovery, Dragon Recovery, and Dragon operations teams. She was responsible for crew and ground operator flight training, flight software testing, CONOPs development, and simulator design. 

Laura began her career at Northrop Grumman working on various programs for DARPA and other DoD customers, including a 4-year operations assignment in North Yorkshire, England. She has a Bachelor’s in Astronautical Engineering and a Master’s in Systems Architecture, both from the University of Southern California.

Laura has 2 young boys who are super active in sports. Outside of work and family, Laura spends a lot of time at the CrossFit gym, going for runs around Redondo Beach, taking her dog for a walk, and reading/listening to fantasy and sci-fi books.