NASA’s new chief of human spaceflight has a commercial background

Enlarge / NASA's Kathy Lueders celebrates Crew Dragon's hatch opening on May 31. (credit: NASA)

On Friday morning, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that he had selected Kathy Lueders to serve as the space agency's new chief of human spaceflight. In this position, she will help set human spaceflight policy and implement it across the agency. Her top mandate will be getting humans to the Moon by 2024, or soon thereafter.

Kathy gives us the extraordinary experience and passion we need to continue to move forward with Artemis and our goal of landing the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024," Bridenstine said. "Kathy's the right person to extend the space economy to the lunar vicinity and achieve the ambitious goals we've been given."

As program manager for Commercial Crew-which recently saw SpaceX launch NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the International Space Station-Lueders has led the one big-ticket program for the space agency that has delivered for Bridenstine. Other high-profile programs, including the Space Launch System rocket and James Webb Space Telescope, have continued to experience delays.

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