National Space Club Breakfast Huntsville w/Joseph Pelfrey

Join us Tuesday, Jan 16, 2024 at the Breakfast Club with Joseph Pelfrey
Date: Tuesday, Jan 16, 2024
Breakfast 7:15 AM | Program 7:45 AM
Location: The Jackson Center | 6001 Moquin Drive Huntsville, Alabama 35806

Acting Director, Marshall Space Flight Center Joseph Pelfrey is Acting Director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, after being the Deputy Director under Jody Singer. He leads Marshall’s nearly 7,000 onsite and near-site civil service and contractor employees and oversees its annual budget of approximately $4 billion. He also guides Marshall’s broad portfolio of human spaceflight, science, and technology development efforts, which touches nearly every mission NASA pursues.

Previously, Pelfrey was manager of Marshall’s Human Exploration Development and Operations Office from 2020-2022, overseeing management and implementation of Marshall’s work portfolio in the areas of human exploration and transportation projects; habitation systems, payload and mission operations and integration; and International Space Station payload, facility, environmental control and life support systems project development and integration. He also served from 2018-2020 as deputy manager of that organization.

Throughout his NASA career, he has served in multiple technical leadership positions at Marshall. He began his career as an industry partner, supporting development of space station payload hardware, and joined Marshall full-time in 2004 as an aerospace engineer in the Science and Mission Systems Office. He went on to serve in various leadership roles within the ISS Program, overseeing the development, integration, and operations of multiple payload facilities and science experiments.

In 2008, Pelfrey joined Marshall’s Engineering Directorate to serve as the design integration lead for the Ares I Upper Stage, the rocket that would inform development of NASA’s Space Launch System. In 2011, he was named engineering task manager for the Space Launch System’s Spacecraft/Payload Integration and Evolution Office and, subsequently, manager of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Project at Marshall.

In 2012, Pelfrey was appointed deputy manager and then manager of the Exploration and Space Transportation Development Office in Marshall’s Flight Programs and Partnerships Office. In 2016, he was appointed to the Senior Executive Service post of associate director for operations in Marshall’s Engineering Directorate. The Senior Executive Service is the personnel system covering most top managerial, supervisory and policy positions in the executive branch of the federal government