Kathy Lueders, formerly NASA associate administrator of the Space Operations Mission Directorate, before talking to press on May 30 following SpaceX’s launch of the Demo-2 mission.
Kim Shiflett / NASA
Kathy Lueders, probably the most recent top human spaceflight official at NASA, has joined Elon Musk’s SpaceX after retiring from the agency a few weeks ago, CNBC has learned.
Lueders’ role will probably be general manager, and she’s going to work out of the corporate’s “Starbase” facility in Texas, reporting on to SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell, people acquainted with the matter told CNBC.
It is a key hire for SpaceX as the corporate goals to make its massive Starship rocket protected to fly people in the approaching years. Lueders, a respected expert within the sector, is already acquainted with the corporate’s human spaceflight work to this point.
The SpaceX Starship lifts off from the launchpad during a flight test from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, on April 20, 2023.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images
SpaceX didn’t immediately reply to CNBC’s request for comment on Lueders’ hiring.
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Lueders retired from NASA at the top of April, following a 31-year profession with the agency. Before leading NASA’s human spaceflight program, she oversaw the culmination of its Business Crew program as manager, including the primary SpaceX missions to hold NASA astronauts.
Earlier this yr and shortly before she retired, SpaceX accomplished its sixth operational NASA crew launch — completing its initial contract for the agency. The corporate has received additional awards for eight more crewed missions.
Notably, Lueders follows within the footsteps of one in all her recent NASA predecessors, William Gerstenmaier, who joined SpaceX in 2020 after greater than a decade because the agency’s top human spaceflight official. Gerstenmaier is now SpaceX’s vice chairman of construct and flight reliability.
Correction: The headlines and a photograph caption on this story have been updated to correct the spelling of Kathy Lueders’ name.
