Kathy Lueders Joins SpaceX to Oversee Starship Rocket Development

Kathy Lueders, NASA's former head of human spaceflight. (photo: Twitter @KathyLueders)

JAKARTA - Kathy Lueders, former head of NASA human spaceflight, has joined Elon Musk's company, SpaceX, to help oversee the development of the rocket to the moon and Mars, Starship. This was stated by a source familiar with the recruitment on Monday, May 15.

Lueders, the second former NASA chief of human spaceflight in recent years to retire and move to SpaceX, is a key recruit for the company. Especially when they are vying to develop and use Starship to land NASA astronauts on the moon in the next decade.

The source confirming Lueders' hiring, which was first reported by CNBC, spoke on condition of anonymity. Meanwhile SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lueders spent 31 years at NASA and retired in April. In 2021, he is NASA's source selection officer who selects SpaceX's Starship rocket for the US$3 billion Artemis contract to land first United States astronauts on the moon since 1972. Private moon landers from other companies will be selected in future contract programs.

Lueders is among a group of officials recognized as driving force for U.S. space agency change in adopting the public-private contract model, a cost-saving approach in which NASA helps finance the development of private spacecraft and buys seats for astronauts as a service, rather than as spacecraft owners.

As head of NASA's human spaceflight division, Lueders is responsible for the development of SpaceX's Crew Dragon, the company's flagship cargo and NASA astronaut taxi which has become the agency's primary vehicle for travel to and from the International Space Station (ISS).

In late 2021, there was a major reorganization of the agency that removed Lueders from oversight of the lunar program and placed him in charge of NASA's space operations chief, the position that oversees ISS activities.

At SpaceX, Lueders will join his former NASA boss, Bill Gerstenmaier, who in 2020 retired from the agency as head of human spaceflight and joined SpaceX in a similar role regarding Starship.