Kathy Lueders

Kathryn Lueders (pronounced "Leaders") is an American engineer and business manager. Lueders has led NASA's human spaceflight program as the Associate Administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Mission Directorate. She became the first woman to head human spaceflight. She was the program manager for NASA's Commercial Crew Program and oversaw the return of human spaceflight capabilities to NASA. She worked at SpaceX as Starbase General Manager from May 2023 until her retirement in May 2025 . She is separately Vice Chair of the Texas Space Commission and an advisor to Vast Space.

Early life Lueders grew up in Japan, and attended the American School In Japan for a portion of her school years. Her family was living in Tokyo when the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing occurred. She remembers her dad waking the whole family up for the event. She read Isaac Asimov while growing up.

In her undergraduate degree Lueders studied business, as she originally had aspirations to work on Wall Street. During her senior year, however, she wanted to switch to engineering after seeing her roommate study it. She became "interested in engineering because it gave me the tools to solve problems and work on something bigger."

Lueders earned her bachelor's degree of Business Administration in finance from the University of New Mexico in 1986. She also has a Bachelor of Science (1993) and Master of Science (1999) in industrial engineering from New Mexico State University. in the safety and mission assurance office as a quality engineer at the White Sands Test Facility while still a student at New Mexico State. As only the second woman to work at the facility, after graduation Lueders started as the depot manager of the Space Shuttle program Orbital Maneuvering System and Reaction Control Systems. She was the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Integration manager. As this was NASA's first venture into commercial human spaceflight, Lueders brought her knowledge and experience from CRS to the formation and management of CCP.

Lueders managed a NASA team working with SpaceX and Boeing teams concurrently over seven years. She was the CCP manager when SpaceX launched the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission on May 30, 2020, the first human launch from U.S. soil since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in July 2011. After the launch, she said "I am so grateful and proud of our NASA and SpaceX team."

On June 12, 2020, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced Lueders has been appointed the agency's new associate administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Mission Directorate. While considering whether or not to take the position, her husband pointed out she'd be the first woman in the position. She appreciates that being with NASA enables her to operate in a world community with other space-faring nations peacefully.

SpaceX On May 15, 2023, a couple of weeks after retiring from NASA, it was reported that Lueders would join SpaceX as a general manager working on the Starship program at Starbase. She reports directly to SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell.

Personal life After getting married and having two children, Lueders returned to college to study engineering.