Melba Roy earned both her bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics from Howard University before working for the Army Map Service and the U.S. Census Bureau. In 1959 she joined NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, just as the Echo 1 satellite was preparing to launch.
As head mathematician, Mouton led a team of NASA's “human computers” who tracked Echo 1 and Echo 2 using optical, digital and radar data, producing the orbital element timetables that let millions of people watch the satellites pass overhead. She was later promoted to Head Computer Programmer and then Assistant Chief of Research Programs in Goddard's Trajectory and Geodynamics Division.
Mouton went on to support the Apollo program, earning NASA's Apollo Achievement Award, and taught early seminars on the APL programming language at IBM's Watson Research Labs.
- Head mathematician for NASA's Echo 1 and Echo 2 satellite tracking
- Assistant Chief of Research Programs, Goddard Trajectory and Geodynamics Division
- Apollo Achievement Award recipient
- Namesake of the lunar mountain Mons Mouton
- Mastery of one data format opens the door to mastering all of them.. Her Census Bureau map experience helped her interpret optical, digital and radar tracking data alike.
- Lead the team even when the technology around you is changing fast.. She adapted from hand calculation to early programming languages like APL.
- A mountain can wait decades to carry your name — the work still mattered before it did.. Mons Mouton was named more than 30 years after her death.