National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) acting Administrator Janet Petro has announced that Vanessa Wyche will serve as the acting associate administrator for the agency at NASA headquarters, effective immediately. Wyche, who had been the director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, is detailed as Petro’s senior advisor leading the agency’s centre directors and mission directorate associate administrators. She will act as the agency’s chief operating officer for about 18,000 civil servant employees and an annual budget of more than USD 25 billion. Stephen Koerner will become the acting centre director of NASA Johnson.
Wyche’s previous responsibilities included a broad range of human spaceflight activities, including development and operation of human spacecraft, NASA astronaut selection and training, mission control, the commercialisation of low Earth orbit, and leading NASA Johnson in exploring the Moon and Mars.
The agency also named Jackie Jester as associate administrator for the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs and announced Catherine Koerner, associate administrator for the agency’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate will retire on February 28. Lori Glaze, currently the deputy associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development will become the mission directorate’s acting associate administrator.
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Image: Official NASA photograph of Vanessa Wyche
