WASHINGTON - NASA has selected Kathy Lueders as program manager for the agency's Commercial Crew Program (CCP). Lueders, who has served as acting program manager since October 2013, will help keep the nation's space program on course to launch astronauts from American soil by 2017 aboard spacecraft built by American companies.
Lueders, who will be assigned to the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, previously served as the International Space Station Program's transportation integration manager, where she managed commercial cargo resupply services to the space station. Lueders also was responsible for NASA oversight of international partner spacecraft visiting the space station, including the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle, the Japanese Space Agency's H-II Transfer Vehicle, and the Russian Federal Space Agency's Soyuz and Progress spacecraft.
Lueders began her NASA career at the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico in 1992, where she managed the Shuttle Orbital Maneuvering System and Reaction Control Systems Depot. She served in numerous positions in the space station program, including the deputy manager for station logistics and maintenance, the vehicle systems integration manager, and the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services integration manager.
As part of NASA's effort to encourage commercial companies to transport crew to and from low Earth orbit Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and SpaceX are developing new commercial vehicles. Boeing is worked on the CST-100, SpaceX is working on the Dragon, and Sierra Nevada is working on the Dream Chaser. Blue Origin is developing equipment under an unpaid agreement. While NASA would like to fund all three companies as long as possible, Congress wants NASA to down-select to at the most two contractors sometime this year. All four companies continue to pass milestones, making it difficult to determine which company will be dropped. Lueders will be in charge of managing the program.
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