Sarah Levine "Cooper" GillisBefore the crew of Polaris Dawn heads to space, they came to campus
- website of the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University o ...

(born January 1, 1994) is an American engineer employed by

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

as the senior space operations engineer. She flew to space in September 2024 on

Polaris Dawn Polaris Dawn was a Private spaceflight, private crewed spaceflight operated by SpaceX on behalf of Shift4 CEO Jared Isaacman, the first of three planned missions in the Polaris program. Launched 10 September 2024 as the 14th crewed orbital flight ...

, a private human spaceflight mission, operated by SpaceX on behalf of

Jared Isaacman Jared Taylor Isaacman (born February 11, 1983) is an American billionaire entrepreneur, pilot, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder and Executive Chairman of Shift4, Shift4 Payments, a payment processor, and the founder of Draken Internati ...

. During the mission, she completed the first commercial

spacewalk Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable atmosphere of Earth, Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environme ...

with Isaacman, becoming the youngest person to date to participate in a spacewalk, and, along with Anna Menon, set a new record for women traveling farthest from Earth.

Early life and education

Gillis graduated from Shining Mountain Waldorf School in Boulder, Colorado, in June 2012. She obtained a BS degree in

aerospace engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is s ...

from

in 2017, this on the advice of her

mentor Mentorship is the patronage, influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the perso ...

, former NASA astronaut

Joseph R. Tanner Joseph Richard Tanner (born January 21, 1950) is an American instructor at the University of Colorado Boulder, mechanical engineer, a former naval officer and aviator, and a former NASA astronaut. He was born in Danville, Illinois. He is unusual ...

Career

In 2015, while at the

, Gillis began an

internship An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used to practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and g ...

, working on

human-in-the-loop Human-in-the-loop (HITL) is used in multiple contexts. It can be defined as a model requiring human interaction. HITL is associated with modeling and simulation (M&S) in the live, virtual, and constructive taxonomy. HITL along with the related hum ...

testing of the

Dragon A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...

spacecraft before moving full-time to the astronaut training program. She is a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX, responsible for overseeing the

astronaut training Astronaut training describes the complex process of preparing astronauts in regions around the world for their space missions before, during and after the flight, which includes medical tests, physical training, extra-vehicular activity (EVA) tra ...

program for the company's

Crew Dragon Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed, manufactured, and operated by the American space company SpaceX for flights to the International Space Station (ISS) and private spaceflight missions. The spacecraft, which consi ...

vehicles. She prepared

NASA astronauts The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

for the first Demo-2 and

Crew-1 SpaceX Crew-1 (was also known as USCV-1 or simply Crew-1) was the first operational crewed flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft and the maiden flight of the Crew Dragon ''Resilience'' spacecraft. It was also the second crewed orbital flight la ...

missions and more recently directly trained

Inspiration4 Inspiration4 (stylized as Inspirati④n) was a 2021 human spaceflight operated by SpaceX on behalf of Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman. The mission launched the Crew Dragon Crew Dragon Resilience, ''Resilience'' on 16 September 2021 at 00:02: ...

astronauts, the first all-civilian crew to go into orbit. Gillis is an experienced

Mission Control A mission control center (MCC, sometimes called a flight control center or operations center) is a facility that manages space flights, usually from the point of launch until landing or the end of the mission. It is part of the ground segment ...

Operator, who has supported real-time operations for

's cargo resupply missions to and from the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

as a Navigation Officer and as Crew Operations and Resources Engineer (

CORE Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (laboratory), a highly specialized shared research resource * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber ...

) for crew Dragon missions, the SpaceX equivalent of the NASA CAPCOM role.

Polaris Dawn

In September 2024 Gillis flew on

, a

private spaceflight Private spaceflight is any spaceflight development that is not conducted by a government agency, such as NASA or ESA. During the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Union and United States pionee ...

operated by SpaceX on behalf of

Shift4 Shift4 Payments, Inc. is an American payment processing company based in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The company, founded in 1999 by the then 16-year-old Jared Isaacman, processes payments for over 200,000 businesses in the retail, hospitality, leis ...

CEO

. She performed a stand-up

extravehicular activity Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable atmosphere of Earth, Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environme ...

(SEVA) with Jared Isaacman, becoming the youngest person to do so. Gillis, along with Anna Menon, set the record for the farthest women from Earth. Later during the mission, Gillis, a classically trained violinist, played the solo violin part of "Rey's Theme" by

John Williams John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932)Nylund, Rob (November 15, 2022)Classic Connection review, ''WBOI'' ("For the second time this year, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic honored American composer, conductor, and arranger John Williams, who w ...

from the 2015 film '' Star Wars: The Force Awakens'' to raise money for

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is a pediatric treatment and research hospital headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded by entertainer Danny Thomas in 1962, it is a 501(c)(3) designated nonprofit medical corporation which focuses on chi ...

and

El Sistema El Sistema (which translates to The System) is a publicly financed, voluntary sector, music-education program, founded in Venezuela in 1975 by Venezuelan educator, musician, and activist José Antonio Abreu.Lesniak It later adopted the motto " ...

Media coverage

Gillis appears in episodes 3, 4 and 5 in the 2021 Netflix series '' Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space''.

Early life and education

Career

Polaris Dawn

Media coverage

References

See also