Rachel Stone

Rachel Stone serves as a key procurement professional at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where she manages complex acquisitions supporting the development of advanced propulsion systems, space vehicle technologies, and mission-critical research infrastructure. Her work directly enables the Center’s mandate to pioneer next-generation rocket engines and deep space exploration capabilities, with a focus on high-performance engineering and computational systems for propulsion testing and real-time data analysis. She routinely handles sole-source and competitive procurements under the Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences NAICS category, ensuring alignment with NASA’s strategic goals for Moon-to-Mars architecture development. Stone maintains strong, sustained relationships with specialized contractors including Bastion Technologies Inc. and Aerospace & Commercial Technologies, LLC, both of which provide advanced engineering services, systems integration, and technical analysis for propulsion test facilities and flight hardware validation. Her contracting approach emphasizes technical excellence and mission-critical performance, often engaging vendors with proven expertise in hypersonics, fluid dynamics modeling, and high-fidelity simulation tools. These partnerships are built on long-term technical collaboration rather than transactional procurement, reflecting a preference for trusted, mission-aligned providers. Her procurement portfolio reflects a strict focus on open competition, with 100% of awards issued under no set-aside classifications. This underscores a mission-first approach that prioritizes technical capability and operational readiness over socioeconomic preferences, ensuring access to the most qualified technical talent regardless of business size or certification status. The primary technical domain of her acquisitions is Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (NAICS 541715), encompassing computational fluid dynamics, rocket engine design, materials testing, and mission systems engineering. She procures high-end analytical services, prototype development, and specialized instrumentation critical to advancing NASA’s deep space propulsion technologies.