Rohit Goeptar’s path to NASA ran through Suriname, the U.S. Marine Corps, homelessness in Florida, and a roadside job interview on the way to pick up his son from school.

Goeptar was born into a poor family in Suriname, South America. He said both of his parents worked three jobs and could still only provide food and shelter for the family.

At about age six, his family moved to California. Two years later, he moved back to South America with his father while his mother stayed in the United States and remarried. When he was 13, he became a U.S. citizen and returned to California with his brothers to live with their mother.

At 19, Goeptar joined the U.S. Marine Corps and spent six years as a technical operator. During one deployment to the Philippines, he helped set up communication systems for people trying to contact loved ones after a typhoon tore through entire towns.

“I was lost, the Marine Corps gave me an opportunity,” Goeptar recalled.

His life was also marked by personal loss. He lost two fathers to suicide, and a short first marriage ended with him being unhoused on the streets of Kissimmee, Florida, for six months.

He said his wife played a big part in changing his direction.

“Your brain works in mysterious ways,” she told him shortly after they met.

She filled out college applications for him, and he later applied to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. While raising three children and studying full-time for computer engineering and electrical engineering degrees at the same time, he got a call from Kennedy.

“In spring 2025, I was driving to pick my son up from school when a gentleman from Kennedy calls, telling me he’s seen my resume and do I have time for a quick interview,” Goeptar recounted.

He pulled over and did the interview on the spot. Two weeks later, he had an in-person interview with others from Kennedy. Two weeks after that, he had a contractor badge at Kennedy Space Center.

Goeptar started as an intern under the Expendable Launch Vehicle Integrated Support, or ELVIS, contract. He then moved to part-time work until he graduated from the University of Central Florida in Orlando, and went full-time at the beginning of 2026. He was later one of the ELVIS contractors picked up to become a civil servant.

Now with NASA’s Launch Services Program, Goeptar works with electromagnetic interference, electromagnetic compatibility, and radio frequency. His job covers the full mission, checking that avionic boxes and other electrically powered equipment do not interfere with other systems. He also checks that independent systems are compatible when brought together and conducts model radio frequency link analysis for different rockets and science demonstration payloads.

Those payloads may belong to NASA or commercial partners, and he is responsible for uninterrupted communication with the ground.

In his short time at Kennedy, Goeptar has worked on Sentinel-6B, JPSS-4, the Joint Polar Satellite System, and IMAP, the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe.

Within a year at Kennedy, he spotted what the source described as an analytical issue his team was not tracking. The analysis had not accounted for a rocket’s pitch, yaw, and roll after launch, making it less accurate than it could be. He presented a solution to the team lead, and it now enables NASA data and partner data to be much more in sync.

“There is no greater feeling, being able to serve. It’s more than serving the public, it’s serving our country. It’s serving the future of our country,” Goeptar said with tears brimming in his eyes. “Being able to give back to that same government that gave me an opportunity to be where I’m at today. There’s no greater feeling than that.”

His 11-year-old son, a NASA enthusiast, takes most of the credit for Goeptar’s job at the space center, believing he spoke it into existence.

“One day he wants to become an astronaut,” Goeptar said with joy on his face. “And I told him I will guide him until the day that I die. Maybe my last mission could be the one my son flies on. I’m not going to stop until that day happens.”

Goeptar was recently accepted into electrical engineering master’s programs at both Johns Hopkins University and the University of Central Florida.

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