Meet the FIRST^® Alum Helping Shape the Future of Space Exploration 

This spring, a record-breaking 51,000+ FIRST^® students, mentors, coaches, volunteers, educators, and sponsors joined us in Houston for the 2026 FIRST^® Championship presented by BAE Systems. Young innovators from around the globe came together to demonstrate their STEM skills, showcase their creativity, and celebrate the spirit of innovation.

Just a month before the FIRST Championship event, Houston played host to another remarkable display of STEM in action: NASA’s Artemis II—the agency’s first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years, guided from Mission Control at Johnson Space Center—successfully completed its journey, setting a new record for the farthest distance humans have traveled from Earth. Artemis II was a powerful reminder that humanity’s greatest technological breakthroughs still lie ahead, and that the next generation of rising engineers will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible.

We caught up with Jenna Kay Foertsch, a Planning and Integration Specialist at Johnson Space Center and a FIRST^Ⓡ alum and current team mentor, who shared her thoughts with us.

FIRST Staff: Jenna, thanks for speaking with us! Before we talk about your role at NASA, can you tell us a little bit about the FIRST programs you’ve participated in, as a student and as a mentor?

Jenna: I was a student on FIRST^® Robotics Competition Team 3184 “Blaze Robotics” in Burnsville, Minnesota for only one year, but that was enough to get me [obsessed]. After that I became a mentor for Team 3184, and then when I moved down to Houston to work at NASA, [I became] a mentor for Team 118,“The Robonauts.”

In past years with Team 118, I primarily worked on our impact efforts, media, and our Everybot initiative. This year, I heavily focused on the Everybot initiative; at the moment I run our grant program through money given to us by the Argosy Foundation. This last year we granted over $100K to rookie teams to ensure they had tools. Securing that grant money meant a lot to me.

Working with the Robonauts has been the blessing of a lifetime. It very frequently feels like the students I have directly mentored have taught me just as much as I have taught them. Watching students come in as hesitant freshmen and leave eager to make a difference with the confidence and tools to do so is worth the time commitment. I get to teach students that caring is the coolest thing you can do. Care about other people. Care about the robot. Care about doing your best. Care about excellence. Care about the quality of work you are doing.

One thing I really like about “The Robonauts” is that we do our best to spread the wealth. I think all teams that have more resources should be putting forth a large effort to ensure other teams at competitions and across the community have resources to be successful. When one of us is better, we all get better.

FIRST Staff: How did FIRST influence your career trajectory and prepare you for the workforce?

Jenna: I love this story: Before I worked at NASA, a friend of mine, Barry, contacted me about a group called Citizens for Space Exploration (CSE). Barry is a fellow FIRST mentor, volunteer, emcee, and game announcer down near the space coast in Florida, and a program planner for the Orion spacecraft.

Representatives from Citizens for Space Exploration travel to Washington, D.C., annually to meet with members and staff to discuss the benefits of human space exploration. He had called me two weeks before they were flying to D.C. to speak with congressional members. Every year they take student representatives from each state to speak with that state’s congressional members about NASA and how the work benefits us down on earth.

He knew me from FIRST and thought I would be a good fit. At this time, I knew very little about NASA so, naturally, I said yes, of course I will fly to DC and learn everything I can about NASA in a week. This trip made me fall in love with NASA and the work they do has influenced the entire world. It was the perfect blend of technical work and outreach.

This trip was in May and at that point I made it my personal mission to work at NASA one day. Luckily for me, I got my first internship at NASA that same fall, and the rest is history!

More generally, FIRST makes you well rounded. I think because my job at NASA has been so variable, I needed the ability to learn new skills quickly. Even though I did not go to school for engineering, when thrown into heavily technical conversations I am able to keep up. I would like to think that a decade of being enveloped in FIRST culture aided that.

Jenna and Barry at FIRST Championship

FIRST Staff: Tell us about your current role at the Johnson Space Center. What does a typical day at your job entail?

Jenna: Gosh, my job is a little bit of everything. I have bounced all over NASA, which has given me a unique perspective on how all the pieces fit together. In my first internship, I worked on data analytics and visualization for center operations. After that, I had a stint in public affairs working on social media campaigns for NASA’s social media. I shadowed my mentor on the public affairs console once for a rendezvous and docking in Mission Control which was a memorable experience. I also worked in the Public Engagement office and office of STEM Education.

After that, I worked in the Exploration Technologies Division on technology transfer, which is taking NASA technology (spinoffs) and supporting groups who are looking to start companies. I worked on mapping out tech startup hot spots across the U.S. to better understand the layout of how NASA can integrate in those spaces. In the last few years, I have worked in the Robotics Systems Technology Branch and the Space Environment Test Management Office.

That is where I got to work with rovers and flight simulators. I have flown a ridiculous number of NASA flight simulators that astronauts use to train, which has been one of the coolest and most unexpected perks of the job. These range from motion-based rover simulators, to planes, to International Space Station Simulators. My favorite was the Alpha Dome. It features a bunch of projectors to provide realistic visual models. It is used for high-fidelity, crew-in-the-loop simulation, including ISS proximity operations, docking, and training. I got the best “report card” on that one, so naturally it became my favorite.

Right now, I dabble heavily in the world of agreements, which is a big part of how NASA collaborates with external partners and companies. I am responsible for all the real estate on site; one of my favorite projects is the Texas A&M Space Institute, which once completed will house the world’s largest lunar and Mars-scapes. I also work on a lot of space act agreements which can vary in scope.

FIRST Staff: What is your favorite part of the job?

Jenna: My favorite part of the job is the people I work with and the fact that we are all contributing to something much bigger than us. I get to look out my window every day and see rockets — how cool is that? Johnson Space Center has the vibes of a college campus, but for astronauts, since they do a lot of astronaut training here. I will be in line for a coffee on-site, and an astronaut will be in front of me getting a latte — it is quite surreal. I think it’s easy to focus on things that may be going wrong in the world, but when Artemis happened [recently], the whole world came together to witness humanity at its best. A group of highly capable people of all backgrounds accomplishing a task to further humanity. That is wildly powerful.

FIRST Staff: Let us talk about Artemis II. How have you been involved with the mission, and with the Artemis Program?

Jenna: Working at NASA is special because you do not have to work directly with mission control, Orion, or the SLS rocket to have an impact on the Artemis Program. I may not touch hardware, but the wide breadth of what I have worked on helps propel the mission forward in its own way; I can say that about every NASA employee. It takes a team to accomplish hard tasks.

I view it similarly to a robotics team where not everyone is on the drive crew, but the work of other subsystems contributes to the overall success. All the random projects I have worked on have their own mission impacts. It has personally been really inspiring to me to see the women working on the mission get their flowers online. The astronaut crew coined the term “moon joy” and we cannot all help but feel that energy.

FIRST Staff: In your view, what is so important about the Artemis Program, and continued lunar exploration?

Jenna: We are a part of the Artemis generation, which is incredible. Under Artemis, NASA will send astronauts on increasingly difficult missions to explore more of the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build on our foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.

NASA’s Artemis II mission was an approximately 10-day journey around the Moon including launch, a lunar flyby, and a safe splashdown off the coast of San Diego. The Artemis II test flight is NASA’s first crewed Artemis mission. Astronauts on their first flight aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft will confirm that the spacecraft’s systems operate as designed with crew aboard in the actual environment of deep space. The unique Artemis II mission profile builds on the uncrewed Artemis I flight test by demonstrating a broad range of SLS (Space Launch System) and Orion capabilities needed on deep space missions. This mission will verify that Orion’s life support systems can sustain astronauts on longer-duration missions and allow the crew to practice operations essential to Artemis III and beyond.

I could write an entire blog post about why lunar exploration is important to humanity. Simply put, understanding the moon helps us understand our own planet and others. It was really fun for me to watch the world fall in love with these astronauts the way that we all have at NASA for the last several years. The Artemis II crew are so genuine, kind, and competent. I think if we can all wake up and do our best to be genuine, kind, and competent, the world will be better off for it.

“The Robonauts” also named our robot “Artemis” this year, and it is our 30th season. That feels like a special nod to the legacy.

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