NASA mission planner Yusef Johnson also coaches the Houston Roughnecks

Yusef Johnson learned valuable lessons in time management at Tuskegee University. While pursuing his degree in aerospace engineering, he played football as a wide receiver and spent a few seasons competing in baseball and track and field.

Johnson also realized it was possible to turn multiple passions into careers. During his 27-year career in space exploration, he served as an assistant football coach at schools in three states.

He is currently the lead planner for NASA’s Artemis IV mission, designed to deliver the International Habitation Module (I-HAB) to the Gateway space station in orbit around the Moon, as well as to carry out a landing mission on the moon. Johnson is also in his third year coaching outside linebackers at Lutheran South Academy.

“I love my job at NASA,” Johnson said. “I have the best of both worlds. I’m chasing two lifelong dreams. I always wanted to coach. People thought I should coach after college. I had just spent five years getting a college degree. engineer. I wanted to be a rocket scientist. One day I would retire from NASA and see myself being that old coach on the side, more of an advisor to the program.

Johnson developed his coaching skills and football experience during the first season of the United Football League, working with the Houston Roughnecks.

He was one of eight high school coaches, one with each UFL team, selected to participate in a partnership with the National Coalition of Minority Football Coaches.

Johnson spent a week at training camp in Arlington and was on the sideline for every Roughnecks home game. He has also traveled to some away games as a spectator and plans to do so for Sunday’s season finale at Memphis.

“It’s a really good experience to be here on game day and see how things go,” Johnson said. “Pre-match meetings the day before, being with the team at the hotel. This whole experience was great for me.

Johnson plans to share his knowledge from his work with the Roughnecks with the Pioneers, who compete in TAPPS Division II and are led by former Westfield head coach and University of Houston assistant Corby Meekins.

One of Johnson’s takeaways during the UFL season was to make the most of every minute, something he could figure out while balancing aerospace and football commitments.

“It’s interesting how to be efficient over time,” Johnson said. “These guys are professionals and they just don’t have a lot of time, so they make the most of it. Learning to maximize time is the most important thing I learned this season.

Johnson started coaching even before college, serving as the junior varsity defensive coordinator at Brooklyn Technical High School.

He began his studies at Tuskegee in 1991 and began his professional career in 1997, working as a trajectory analyst at the Johnson Space Center.

Working as a flight controller for 27 mission control missions, he also found time to coach 7-on-7 football at La Porte and Clear Brook, later joining the coaching staffs at Bay Area Christian and Lutheran South.

When the Space Shuttle program ended, Johnson was hired as a civil engineer for the Navy in 2012. He coached at St. Mary’s Ryken High School in Leonardtown, Maryland.

Johnson was back at NASA in 2013, performing flight design verification at the Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. He coached at Space Coast High School, Titusville High School and Bayside High School, while earning his master’s degree in space systems management from the Florida Institute of Technology.

Johnson returned to Johnson Space Center and Lutheran South in 2021. As football coach, he hopes to be an example to students pursuing multiple aspirations.

Like his coaches at Tuskegee, who allowed him to miss a film session if a project needed to be completed in the lab, Johnson thanks NASA for its flexibility.

He attended meetings by phone while in the middle of training, often catching up remotely afterward. NASA also supported his stay with the Roughnecks.

“My leadership at NASA encouraged me to take this opportunity and run with it, just like they encouraged me to become a coach,” Johnson said. “They allowed me to adjust my schedule so I could leave work early and coach. I was supposed to be at Lutheran South around 3:30 or so.

Although football and aerospace engineering may seem far apart, Johnson said there are similarities. Both require tenacity, teamwork, attention to detail and a focus on safety.

“Even here, people kind of forget about it, but there’s a little warning sticker on the back of the helmet that says you can get killed playing this game,” Johnson said. “The chances of that happening are slim to none, but if someone doesn’t do their job here, someone can get seriously hurt.” The ultimate consequence is that someone may be killed. It’s the same thing in spaceflight. If everyone doesn’t do their job, bad things can happen. »

Any mission to space requires extraordinary planning, especially Artemis IV with multiple launches and moving parts.

The mission is designed to launch from the Kennedy Space Center, with the Orion spacecraft pulling the I-HAB to a rendezvous with the space station and, ultimately, a return from lunar orbit to Earth.

“We work long before the mission takes place,” Johnson said. “Our job is to analyze to ensure the mission design is satisfactory and all mission requirements are met. Then we hand it over to the operations team. Artemis IV won’t launch until 2028, so we’re working on something in four years, and that’s a great feeling.