NASA names 6 flight directors
3 men, 3 women join roster at JSC’s Mission Control
Six NASA employees this week were tapped for a job that fewer than 100 individuals have held since the late 1950s: Mission Control flight director.
These six individuals — three men and three women — will oversee human spaceflight missions to the International Space Station, as well as future missions to the moon and beyond. Currently, there are 26 active flight directors at Houston’s Johnson Space Center.
“The job of flight director is not an easy one, and we make these selections very carefully,” said Holly Ridings, acting chief of the Flight Director Office at Johnson.
Leadership changes at the agency were also afoot in Washington, D.C., this week. President Donald Trump announced Thursday he was nominating James Morhard, a top U.S. Senate aide, as NASA’s second in command.
Morhard currently is the U.S. Senate Deputy Sergeant at Arms. If approved by the Senate, his appointment would mean the two highest
ranking NASA officials will have no prior space technology experience. Bridenstine served in Congress prior to his confirmation in April.
At a Space Transportation Association luncheon in Washington, D.C., in June, Bridenstine said he wanted Janet Kavandi, the current director of NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio, to serve as his number two.
“I look forward to working with Mr. Morhard upon his confirmation,” Bridenstine said in a statement.
The deputy administrator position has been open since Trump took office in January 2017. The Senate still must confirm Morhard before he officials takes over the role.
In Houstonthe six new flight directors will immediately begin training for their roles. They must be able to keep the astronauts and the space station safe by leading teams of controllers, researchers, engineers and support personnel at the Houston center.
And if something goes wrong, they have to be able to make split-second decisions while holding someone’s life in their hands. For example, in 1970 during the Apollo 13 mission, Gene Kranz was in charge of an enormous team on the ground that helped bring three astronauts home after an oxygen tank explosion forced them to abort their trip to the moon.
NASA’s first-ever flight director was Christopher Kraft in 1958. These new flight directors bring the total number to 97 since then.