Engineering alumnus earns prominent award from NASA
August 15, 2018
Eric Cranford (center) receives his Silver Snoopy award from astronauts Victor Glover (left) and Jeanette Epps (right). Also pictured as Cranford’s wife Beth and their two daughters. Photo courtesy of NASA.
Mississippi State University alumnus Eric Cranford was one of just six people to earn a prestigious Space Flight Awareness Silver Snoopy award from NASA’s Stennis Space Center.
Cranford, a 2010 graduate in civil engineering from Mississippi State’s Bagley College of Engineering, was recognized for outstanding support to rocket engine testing. He currently serves as the A-1 Test Stand project manager for Syncom Space Services at Stennis. He was part of the design and implementation team that prepared the A-1 stand for a series of ongoing tests.
Cranford was presented with his Silver Snoopy award by astronauts Jeanette Epps and Victor Glover. The award is a coveted Silver Snoopy lapel pin that was flown aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft during its Exploration Flight Test in December 2014.
NASA’s Space Flight Awareness program was established in 1963 and recognizes outstanding contributions by civil service and contract employees in support of human space flight. To earn the Silver Snoopy award, employees “must have significantly contributed to the human space flight program to ensure flight safety and mission success.” The Silver Snoopy award is given to less than 1 percent of the NASA workforce each year and is presented by a member of the astronaut corps.
The Bagley College of Engineering is online at www.bagley.msstate.edu and can be found on on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube at @msuengineering.
Mississippi State University is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.
By: Philip Allison