On August 12, 1960, NASA launched Echo 1, a reflective Mylar balloon 100 feet across. It carried no telephone conversations. Radio signals bounced off its surface, allowing ground stations to demonstrate a new way to communicate over long distances. A prerecorded message from President Dwight D. Eisenhower was transmitted from California and received in New Jersey. nasa.gov
For that experiment to work, NASA had to know where to look.
At Goddard Space Flight Center, mathematician Melba Roy Mouton led a group of women known as “human computers” who helped track Echo 1 and, later, Echo 2. Their calculations supported efforts to locate satellites as they moved through orbit. Mouton later led programmers whose software calculated spacecraft positions and trajectories. NASA
Mouton joined Goddard in 1959. By the time she retired in 1973, she had become assistant chief of research programs in its Trajectory and Geodynamics Division. NASA recognized her service with an Apollo Achievement Award. Her career encompassed far more than a single satellite or a single set of calculations. NASA
Her name now marks a place on the Moon. Mons Mouton, a broad mountain near the lunar south pole, was named in her honor. The mountain rises roughly 20,000 feet above nearby terrain. A woman whose work helped NASA track objects through space is remembered on the landscape of another world. NASA
Descendants of the Taken Ones. We preserve what our ancestors helped build. Melba Roy Mouton helped track the satellites that showed the world what space communication could become. Her name deserves to be part of that history.
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