Photo By Jason Cutshaw | The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command manages the U.S. Army NASA Detachment...... read more read more
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HOUSTON – Two Army officers provide expertise and leadership to NASA’s human space flight program while following their personal and professional interests.
Lt. Col. Nicholas M. Holtz and Maj. Derrick V. Gough serve as space operations officers at the Army NASA detachment in Houston in support of the Army astronauts. The NASA Detachment’s mission is to provide Soldiers to serve as part of the nation’s human spaceflight program.
Functional Area 40 space operations officers are integrated into operations and planning positions at all Army organizational levels and their duties and responsibilities assist in influencing, shaping, researching and acquiring space-related capabilities.
“The best part about being a space operations officer are the opportunities this role affords Soldiers to bring unique capabilities and concepts to support the Army, NASA, the Department of Defense, our sister government agencies and the American people,” Holtz said.
Holtz, the detachment’s assistant program manager was a military police officer before becoming an FA40 in 2010. As a space operations officer, he has served at the 1st Space Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division, the XVIII Airborne Corps, SpaceX, the Pentagon, and now currently at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Holtz said he remembers first becoming interested in space exploration on July 4, 1997, when Pathfinder robotic spacecraft landed on Mars.
“I was so awestruck by the fact that earlier that same day engineers had established contact with a rover that they successfully landed on another planet and that it was driving around performing its scientific mission,” Holtz said. “I went outside, found Mars in the sky, and just kept thinking about how, at that very moment on that distant red dot in the sky, NASA was commanding a robot who was performing revolutionary science on behalf of a momentous international venture. Ever since then, I have loved the exploration of space and space operations.
“I chose to become a space operations officer because I wanted to pursue that passion and combine it with a desire to serve in the Army that was kindled by a combination of a family tradition of service in the Army along with my respect for the prestigious role the Army holds in protecting freedom and the American way of life that goes all the way back to the birth of our nation,” he added. “I saw becoming a space operations officer as a means to bring together my professional interests while giving myself the opportunity to make meaningful and significant contributions to not only the Army, but the United States.”
Holtz said as an FA40 he has been able to leverage space in the fight against ISIS; created certification plans for rocket components, enabling SpaceX to fly astronauts; championed the next generation GPS constellation’s requirements through the halls of the Pentagon; and managed crew operations during the launch and recovery of NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.
“One thing that I truly love about Army space operations is that these are not unique contributions that only a select few have the opportunity to do,” Holtz said. “These types of opportunities are available to our entire formation, and virtually every space operations officer in our ranks can tell you similar ways they’ve made tremendous and meaningful contributions to the Army and our nation. I can’t think of any other job in the Army where you can drive so much positive impact in such a wide variety of organizations that can do so much for our nation’s space enterprise.”
Holtz said he is currently focused on driving organizational transformation for NASA’s Vehicle Integration Test Office and Flight Integration Division in the areas of operational and administrative processes, knowledge management, system automation, and training.
“Being an Army space operations officer has been tremendously valuable along with my previous role as the mission lead for NASA’s Crew-6 launch and recovery where I was the lead for crew operations during Crew-6’s training, lead up to launch, launch, and landing,” Holtz said. “In this role, I planned and executed operations and logistics factoring in interests of numerous stakeholders including NASA offices, international partners and commercial partners like SpaceX.”
The FA40 community comprises officers from various Army branches, bringing their wide range of experience to make it a diverse and inclusive functional area. Although a technical degree is not a requirement, many FA40 assignments are technical in nature. More than 70% of FA40s have advanced degrees and work on senior-level Army, joint and interagency staffs.
“We primarily come from diverse Army backgrounds that give us direct experience in the very branches, units, and functions that space is leveraged to support,” Holtz said. “Given how the Army professionally develops their officers, we are also experts at bringing together diverse stakeholders, interests, and capabilities to solve wicked problems.”
Gough, who served as a technical exploitation officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency before becoming an FA40 in 2022, said some of his interests are remote sensing, identifying hazards before personnel are ever in an area.
“This interest led me to space-based sensors, which led me to looking at the Army’s functional area dedicated to space operations,” Gough said. “I wanted to learn more about space operations, how it currently supports the Army, and ways I can impact the future of the Army with my strengths.”
Gough said that part of the Army Space Vision states that leaders must integrate friendly joint, coalition, and commercial space capabilities in support of all Army warfighting functions.
“One of the FA40 roles outside of the traditional, operational Army is to learn more about joint, interagency and commercial space capabilities that already exist, as well as how other organizations use these capabilities to solve their problem sets,” Gough said. “The Department of Defense used to own everything space-related, and that paradigm is radically shifting more and more to the private sector.
“Being FA40s give us the opportunity to understand this shift, learn where our future capabilities will reside, how to interact with civilian agencies and companies, and understand what capabilities our commanders have at their disposal,” he added.
Gough said as one of the two FA40As in the detachment, he brings Army experiences where he has learned to integrate capabilities across multiple disciplines and domains to accomplish the mission.
“While I’ll never be an expert to the same degree as any of my NASA colleagues, my previous Army experiences help me better understand how integrating capabilities and bringing in external stakeholders can have a multiplicative effect on the mission,” Gough said. “Part of my role is to bring an outside viewpoint to NASA’s problem set, be tactfully vocal about gaps that I identify, and help facilitate the teams I am on to reach a consensus and follow-through on a plan of action.”
| Date Taken: | 03.04.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 03.04.2025 13:27 |
| Story ID: | 491991 |
| Location: | HOUSTON, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 160 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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