Joseph Pelfrey Takes Permanent Lead of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

Joseph Pelfrey has assumed the directorship of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Marshall, with 7,000 employees and contractors, manages a roughly $5 billion portfolio of human spaceflight, science and technology development programs and New Orleans’ Michoud Assembly Facility, which makes major components of the Artemis program’s Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, NASA said Monday. 

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Pelfrey will lead the space flight center’s workforce, which is involved “in nearly every” mission of the space agency. Nelson added that Pelfrey will maintain the facility’s efforts to support Artemis.

Pelfrey’s appointment comes after a stint as Marshall’s acting center director. He was previously deputy center director and, earlier, manager of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services project at the facility.

Pelfrey also held various leadership roles at NASA’s SLS Spacecraft/Payload Integration and Evolution Office, the Marshall Engineering Directorate and the International Space Station program. He joined the agency as an aerospace engineer in the Science and Mission Systems Office.