Long before they helped shape NASA’s future aerospace breakthroughs, Derek Abramson, Justin Hall, and Justin Link were in their garages and homes building radio‑controlled aircraft, testing new ideas, and flying their creations at hobby events.
At NASA Armstrong’s subscale flight lab, the team turns that lifelong enthusiasm into mission-focused innovation. The laboratory supports research that ranges from advanced navigation systems for future landings on the Moon and Mars to emerging aeronautics concepts that need quick, low-cost evaluation.
Abramson, Hall, and Link play roles in that work. Abramson serves as the laboratory’s chief engineer. Together, they integrate emerging aerospace technologies with the lab’s subscale aircraft fleet and, when needed, design and build aircraft or flight experiments to evaluate new concepts.
Abramson’s expertise, built through service in the U.S. Navy and the aerospace industry, centers on technical oversight, management, and system design. Hall is known for creative approaches to problem solving and uses practical methods to address technical challenges and maintain flight safety. Link specializes in designing and fabricating research vehicles and draws on extensive hands-on experience to understand what works, and what does not, in flight.
Their passion for flight brought Abramson, Hall, and Link together years before they one-by-one joined NASA more than a decade ago, though each discovered that spark in a different way.
As an engineer, he supported the B-1 and CV-22 Osprey aircraft flight tests.
Hall’s interest grew after seeing aircraft including the Mach 3 SR-71 fly over his elementary school playground and watching Space Shuttle Challenger land from above his dad’s shoulders.