ASTE Instructors Honored at NASA Awards Ceremony

Viterbi Staff | January 31, 2026 

NASA’s Exceptional Public Achievement Medals are awarded to researchers and engineers who have made significant contributions to the advancement of space exploration.
NASA awards ceremony

ASTE instructors working at JPL have been honored for their work in space engineering research.

At an event held at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena, CA, on 22 January, 2026, two part-time instructors in the USC Department of Astronautical Engineering (ASTE) were awarded NASA Exceptional Public Achievement Medals.

Oscar Alvarez-Salazar, principal guidance and control engineer at JPL, was awarded a medal for exceptional achievement in successfully delivering the critical Pointing Control System for the Deep Space Optical Communications experiment.

Gregory Lantoine, mission design & navigation manager and mission operations system engineer at JPL, was awarded a medal for exceptional achievement in the redesign of the
Psyche orbital phase reducing operations time by a year and saving significant costs while meeting all mission requirements.

Published on January 31st, 2026

Last updated on January 31st, 2026

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