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Christopher Huie, also known as “Chuie,” is an astronaut and aerospace engineer, currently serving as Sr. Manager of Delta Program Support at Virgin Galactic. His contributions to the nascent commercial human spaceflight industry include six years of leadership in the Flight Sciences External Loads Engineering discipline, supporting both the design and operation of the air-launched Spaceflight System. As a Mission Specialist on Unity 25, he played a key role in Virgin Galactic’s final test flight, paving the way for the first commercial mission, Galactic 01. Christopher is among the first 650 humans to venture into space and the 19th Black astronaut globally.
Before joining Virgin Galactic, Christopher spent over five years at Bell Flight, contributing to various rotorcraft programs as both an External Loads and a Simulation Engineer. He holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD), where he was a scholar in the QUEST Honors Program and the Igor Sikorsky Scholarship Program. In 2022, he was inducted into the inaugural class of UMD’s Clark School of Engineering’s Early Career Distinguished Alumni Society, which recognizes alumni under 40 years old for their leadership, innovation, service, and entrepreneurship.
Christopher’s dedication to mentoring and inspiring students in Science, Engineering, and Aerospace is evident through his involvement in Virgin Galactic’s outreach initiative, Galactic Unite, and his Co-Founder role in the Black Leaders in Aerospace Scholarship & Training (BLAST) Program. A Virgin Unite 2021 “Together We Can: Change” winner, he is actively involved in outreach efforts to improve preparedness and increase opportunities for underrepresented groups in aerospace.