To the Moon... Matt Kuhns ‘02 is helping lead a mission to the moon. Yes, you read that correctly. A Xavier alumnus is helping lead a mission to the moon. Since leaving Xavier, Matt has been busy and now finds himself leading a group of engineers whose mission is to be the first to land on the south pole of the moon. Back to the beginning…
Upon graduating from Xavier, Matt attended UW Madison with Melissa Meyer '02, also from the Xavier class of 2002. The two were married in 2006. Last year they were blessed with their daughter, Anna. Melissa graduated with a degree in Molecular Biology in 2006 and Matt with a degree in Aerospace Engineering in 2008. Jobs took them briefly to Cleveland before they landed in California. Matt joined Masten Space Systems in 2015. Matt considers himself fortunate, working his dream job with rockets and on the space program! He is the Chief Engineer and Engineering Manager at Masten Space Systems, which specializes in vertical takeoff vertical landing (VTVL) rocketry. The company really took off (pun intended) in 2009 when Masten won the NASA Centennial Challenge Northrop Lunar Lander Challenge X-Prize for multiple simulated lunar landings.
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X, The Xavier Magazine
• Summer 2020