SKY EVENT? - MAY 27th Milestone Launch
Days before landmark launch, NASA’s head of human spaceflight, Doug Loverro, quits due to ‘mistake’
by Alan Boyle on May 19, 2020 at 3:52 pm
https://www.geekwire.com/2020/nasas-head-human-spaceflight-bows-week-landmark-crewed-spacex-mission/
NASA’s top executive concentrating on human spaceflight, Doug Loverro, has resigned just a week before the scheduled start of a milestone space mission.
Loverro became NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations last December, and was playing a leading role in NASA’s Artemis moon program as well as preparations for next week’s launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station.
That mission, set for liftoff on May 27 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is due to send NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the station for a stay that could last as long as four months. It’ll be the first launch of an orbital crewed mission from U.S. soil since the retirement of NASA’s space shuttles in 2011.
For nearly nine years, NASA has had to rely on the Russians to get American astronauts to the space station. If all goes according to plan, the SpaceX launch will end that era next week.
Before coming to NASA, Loverro spent three decades working for the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Reconnaissance Office, where he developed policies for national security-related space activities. He was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy from 2013 to 2017. Since then, he has operated an independent consulting firm.
https://www.space.com/douglas-loverro-nasa-human-spaceflight-operations.html