Since graduating from Lincoln-Way Central High School in 2014, Erik LeBeau aimed for the moon with his career — and made it there.
LeBeau, 27, who grew up in New Lenox, works for United Launch Alliance and collaborated with Boeing and NASA on Artemis I, the first launch of the space launch system which sent NASA’s Orion spacecraft into orbit to the moon, he said.Erik LeBeau, a 2014 graduate of Lincoln-Way Central High School in New Lenox, stands outside the Kennedy Space Center May 11, 2022. LeBeau was part of a team of United Launch Alliance engineers that worked with NASA and Boeing on the Artemis I moon launch.
While at Lincoln-Way Central, LeBeau said his science, technology, engineering and math teachers helped him get so far in his career. Particularly, LeBeau said his physics teacher, David Baran, inspired him to pursue engineering. “He was really excited to talk AP physics, and he often talked about a career in aerospace. I am lucky to have had him and thrilled and honored he remembers me so fondly,” Baran said.
Initially, LeBeau said he started working on Artemis II before Artemis I. For Artemis II, he helped develop the mission design requirements, he said, and after completing that work he talked with his boss to arrange a way to work on the technical side of the mission, which has been a decade in the making.
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