Aarti Matthews is the Starship Human Landing System Program Manager at SpaceX. Her portfolio of programs includes crew and cargo Starship missions, such as Commercial Lunar Payload Services and dearMoon. In this role, she is leading the program development and certification the Starship lunar landing and exploration system that will allow humans to travel to and live on the Moon. In her 10+ years at SpaceX, Aarti has worked with an array of commercial, international and government customers while serving as the Mission Manager for several Dragon cargo resupply and human spaceflight missions to the Space Station as well as for the launch of commercial satellites. This includes SES-9, CRS-7, and Demo-1, which was the first demonstration mission of SpaceX’s human spaceflight system when the upgraded Dragon spacecraft successfully autonomously docked with the International Space Station before it safely returned to Earth. 

Aarti has spent her 20-year career dedicated to human and robotic exploration of our solar system. She started her career at the European Space Agency developing human lunar mission architectures and space station robotic systems. After moving to the US and working in partnership with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, she built and tested the robotic arm for the Mars Curiosity rover and was the mechanical systems engineer and integration lead for the Mars Science Lab landing radar.  

Originally from the UK, Aarti received her master’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Imperial College London. Aarti has lived and worked in several different countries including The Netherlands, France and Thailand. Based in Los Angeles, California, Aarti and her husband, son and daughter, share a love of exploring our world through travel, food and dance.